CANADA (Calgary)

Economic Evaluation of using Urban Form to Increase Activity (EcoEUFORIA)

The EcoEUFORIA team

Dr. Alan Shiell
BSc (Hons I), MSc, PhD
EcoEUFORIA Principle Investigator

Alan joined the University of Calgary in 2000. He has undergraduate and masters degrees in economics from the Universities of London and York respectively, and a PhD in health economics from the University of Sydney. He is an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Health Scientist, a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health and a member of the CIHR-funded International Collaboration on Complex Interventions. In 2005 he spent twelve months as the Director of the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University in Australia. In 2007 Alan was awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Chair in the Economics of Population Health.

Research Interests: Economics of public health, including the development and application of methods of economic evaluation to complex, public health interventions

Beverly A. Sandalack
MLandArch, PhD, FCSLA, MCIP
Co-Investigator

Dr. Beverly A. Sandalack is Professor and founding Coordinator of the Urban Design Program at the University of Calgary, and Director of The Urban Lab, a research group in the Faculty of Environmental Design. She is principal of Sandalack + Associates Inc., a Calgary firm specialized in urban design, small town and neighbourhood planning and design, and open space planning.

Bev’s work with the Urban Lab and professionally has received local, national and international awards. She is co-author of The Calgary Project: urban form / urban life (2006), two publications on Sense of Place (2005), Urban Structure Halifax: urban form/urban life (1998), and she co-authored a column in the Calgary Herald on urban design and development issues from 2005-2008. She has ongoing projects and publications dealing with urban design, urban morphology, sense of place, and design education, including current work on the relationships between urban form, physical activity and social connectivity, and design for neighbourhood evolutionary processes.

Patricia K. Doyle-Baker
Dr. PH, MA., B.Sc; CEP
Co-Investigator

Dr. Doyle-Baker is a Doctor of Public Health and a graduate of from Loma Linda University in California. She also has a Masters in Exercise Physiology and a B.Sc. in Human Performance and Biochemistry from the University of Victoria, Canada. She is a certified exercise physiologist (CEP) and an associate professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and an adjunct associate professor in Environmental Design, at the University of Calgary, Alberta.

Tish’s research involves energy expenditure and exercise specific to population health outcomes. She has a particular interest in how neighbourhood structure promotes physical activity and health and how neighbourhood design affects playability. Her ongoing projects include: 1) childhood obesity biomarkers based on exercise intervention, 2) health and exercise markers of first year university students and working women, and 3) the urban form impact on energy expenditure

Dr. Christine Friedenreich
BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD

Co-Investigator

Dr. Friedenreich is a cancer epidemiologist with the Department of Population Health Research of the Division of Cancer Care, Alberta Health Services and an Adjunct Professor in the Faculties of Medicine and Kinesiology of the University of Calgary (U of C). She holds a Health Senior Scholar career award from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research.  Dr. Friedenreich completed her doctorate in Epidemiology at the University of Toronto in 1990 and postdoctoral work at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France and at the U of C between 1990 to1994.  She has been a Research Scientist at AHS since 1995 and is currently the Leader for Population Health Research. In 2004-5, Dr. Friedenreich was the Visiting Scientist at the IARC. Dr Friedenreich’s research is focused on understanding the role of physical activity in reducing the risk of developing cancer and in improving quality of life and survival after cancer diagnosis.

FRANCISCO G. ALANIZ URIBE
BScArch, MPDU, MEDes (Urban Design)

Francisco Alaniz Uribe is Research Associate at the EVDS Urban Lab, and an Adjunct Professor and Sessional Instructor, Urban Design Studio at the University of Calgary. Prior to coming to Calgary in 2004, Francisco had professional experience as a registered architect and as an urban designer in Mexico, where his project experience included institutional buildings, small housing complexes, urban parks and large residential communities. He was a member of a multidisciplinary team involved in developing an Urban Development Plan for a municipality of 1.3 million people in Mexico City, and was a member of several design teams involved in urban plazas, civic buildings, downtown revitalization plans, and open space plans.

As Research Associate with the Urban Lab, he has participated in several research projects dealing with urban form and urban design and their relationships with physical activity and social connectivity. He has also collaborated on several award-winning projects ranging from open space planning, small town planning and design, to site-specific urban design, and has designed several publications for the Urban Lab.

Francisco is also an Associate with Sandalack + Associates Inc., a Calgary-based consulting firm that practices urban design, landscape architecture, and planning, and has participated in several downtown revitalization, open space planning, and urban planning projects in towns and cities in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Francisco has extensive experience in computer based urban analysis, site planning, 3D modeling, development of building plans, and graphic design.

Dr. Gavin McCormack
BSc, MSc, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Gavin McCormack joined the Population Health Intervention Research Centre in 2007 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, after completing his PhD in Public Health at the University of Western Australia. He has completed a Bachelor of Science (Human Movement) degree at the University of Western Australia and a Master of Science (Sports Science) degree at Edith Cowan University in Perth. Gavin received an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) Postdoctoral Fellowship Award in 2007 to work on the EcoEUFORIA project. In addition to the specific objectives of the EcoEUFORIA project, Gavin will investigate the influence of season on setting specific physical activity and how this impacts on the potential cost-effectiveness of investments in improving local environments. He also recently received a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Fellowship in 2009 which will enable him to continue his postdoctoral work including examining the influence of individual and area level socioeconomic status on the relationship between the built environment and physical activity.

Research interests: Determinants of physical activity, in particular the physical environment and urban design; Physical activity measurement and survey design; Health promotion

Project:

Project background
There has been a recent focus on social ecological determinants of behaviour including the built environment and policy. Studies have shown associations between features of the built environment (i.e. destination proximity and mix, population density, presence of sidewalks, access to public open space) and physical activity but few have investigated these relationships in the Canadian context. Moreover, to date the cost-effectiveness of creating physical activity supportive environments for improving health have not been examined. The overall objective of the EcoEUFORIA project is to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of using urban form to promote health and reduce health care costs in Canada. Specific objectives include 1) examining the relationship between features of the built environment and physical activity 2) evaluating the costs associated with creating new walkable neighbourhoods and retrofitting established neighbourhoods 3) determining the effect that changes to the built environment might have on physical activity, health and health services use and 4) comparing the cost-effectiveness of creating environments supportive of physical activity relative to other forms of health promotion.

Method
Data were be collected using telephone interviews and postal surveys with two randomly selected, independent samples of Calgarian adults conducted once during summer and again in winter (n= 4400 on each occasion). The interviews captured information about physical activity behaviour, physical activity-related cognitions (i.e., intention to be active, perceived behavioural control, attitudes, and subjective norm), reasons for residing in the respondents' current neighbourhood, and demographic characteristics. The postal survey captured additional information including perceptions of neighbourhood walkability using the Abbreviated Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale, social support, self-rated health and body mass, socio-economic status, and demographic characteristics. Modified International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) items were used to capture neighbourhood-specific physical activity during the self-administered questionnaire. Objective walkability measures of the respondent's neighbourhood (i.e. street connectivity, land use proximity and mix, population/residential density, allocation of public open space, access to sidewalks and paths) will be determined using spatial and geographical information systems data from the City of Calgary.

Project Funding
Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR)

Project Publications
McCormack, G., Shiell, A, Doyle-Baker, P., Friedenreich, C. & Giles-Corti, B. (in press) Gender and age-specific seasonal variations in physical activity among adults. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

McCormack, G., Shiell, A, Doyle-Baker, P., Friedenreich, C., Sandalack, B., & Giles-Corti, B. Testing the reliability of neighborhood-specific measures of physical activity among Canadian adults. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 6, 367-373.

Conference presentations

McCormack, G., Shiell, A., and Powell, C. Test-retest reliability of the Abbreviated Neighbourhood Walkability Scale among Canadian adults. Canadian Public Health Association Annual Conference, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (June 2009)

McCormack, G., Shiell, A., Friedenreich, C., Doyle-Baker, P.K., and Giles-Corti, B. Seasonal variations in physical activity participation among Calgarian adults. Canadian Public Health Association Annual Conference, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (June 2009)

McCormack, G.R., Shiell, A., Friedenreich, C., Doyle-Baker, PK., and Sandalack, B. The relationship between perceived neighbourhood walkability and neighbourhood-specific walking among Calgarian adults: Preliminary findings from the EcoEUFORIA project. Canadian Public Health Association Annual Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (June 2008)

McCormack, G.R., Shiell, A., Friedenreich, C., Doyle-Baker, PK., and Sandalack, B. Neighborhood Self-selection: Is There a Relationship Between Reasons for Choosing Neighborhoods and Participation in Setting-Specific Physical Activity? Active Living Research Conference, Washington DC, USA (April 2008)