Associations between Urban Sprawl and Life Expectancy in the United States

Shima Hamidi, Reid Ewing, Zaria Tatalovich, James B. Grace and David Berrigan
Additional contact information
Shima Hamidi: College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA
Reid Ewing: Department of City and Metropolitan Planning, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Zaria Tatalovich: Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, Surveillance Research Program, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
James B. Grace: Wetland and Aquatic Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Lafayette, LA 70506, USA
David Berrigan: Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, Behavioral Research Program, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 5, 1-11

Abstract: In recent years, the United States has had a relatively poor performance with respect to life expectancy compared to the other developed nations. Urban sprawl is one of the potential causes of the high rate of mortality in the United States. This study investigated cross-sectional associations between sprawl and life expectancy for metropolitan counties in the United States in 2010. In this study, the measure of life expectancy in 2010 came from a recently released dataset of life expectancies by county. This study modeled average life expectancy with a structural equation model that included five mediators: annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per household, average body mass index, crime rate, and air quality index as mediators of sprawl, as well as percentage of smokers as a mediator of socioeconomic status. After controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, this study found that life expectancy was significantly higher in compact counties than in sprawling counties. Compactness affects mortality directly, but the causal mechanism is unclear. For example, it may be that sprawling areas have higher traffic speeds and longer emergency response times, lower quality and less accessible health care facilities, or less availability of healthy foods. Compactness affects mortality indirectly through vehicle miles traveled, which is a contributor to traffic fatalities, and through body mass index, which is a contributor to many chronic diseases. This study identified significant direct and indirect associations between urban sprawl and life expectancy. These findings support further research and practice aimed at identifying and implementing changes to urban planning designed to support health and healthy behaviors.

Keywords: urban sprawl; compactness; mortality; built environment; life expectancy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/5/861/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/5/861/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:5:p:861-:d:143307

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().