March 6, 2015
Study: Lower property values match high body-weight index in King County
Two views of the spatial clustering of obesity in King County, from a recent study involving Anne Vernez Moudon of the UW College of Built Environments. The panel at left refects obesity clusters adjusted for demographic characteristics and the panel at right is adjusted for socioeconomic characteristics. Both show high body-mass indexes, called BMIs, clustering in South King County and lower BMI in North King County.Ruizhu Huang / Anne V. Moudonf Texas, w
New research from the UW College of Built Environments on the “spatial clustering of obesity” in urban areas has helped clarify and build upon work a 2007 study began.
The takeaway, in brief: In King County, Washington, at least, low property values match with high body-mass indexes, or BMIs in less diverse, lower-income South King County, and higher property values match with low BMIs in more populous, prosperous North King County. Body-mass indexes are a measure of a person’s relative size based on height and weight.
The previous study, led by Adam Drewnowski, UW professor of epidemiology, used zip codes as a proxy for neighborhoods and found that obesity prevalence is predicted in large part by low property values.
The more recent study, published late in 2014 in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, uses two different types of analysis — spatial cluster detection methods and individual-level data — to study geographic patterns of obesity in the 2008-2009 Seattle Obesity Study, looking for where people with high BMIs are clustered in King County.
Lead author was Ruizhu Huang of the University of Texas, who earned his doctorate while studying at the UW’s Urban Form Lab. Anne Vernez Moudon, director of the lab, was second author, and Drewnowski was a co-author.
“With these kinds of tools, we know where to go to address the problem of obesity and help people,” Moudon said. “We can aim food policies and related activities so that they concentrate on this neighborhood of low property values.”
- To learn more, contact Moudon at 206-276-3133 or moudon@uw.edu or Drewnowski at adamdrew@uw.edu or 206-543-8016.
