Preliminary Research on Walkability

APA’s Metrics for Planning Healthy Communities gives a simple guideline for looking at community health. This guide does not explicitly give a metric for planners to follow, with the justification that it needs to be specifically tailored to the city’s goals and needs (Ricklin and Shah, 2017). They explain that traditional measures of health like health care services and genetic predisposition only accounts for 40% of determinants for health, as shown in. On the other hand, behavioral patterns, social circumstances, and environmental exposure account for 60% of determinants for health, which shows that planners have a significant role in improving the health of the community. These issues are related to inequalities that stem from systematic disparities which should be mitigated by planners (Ricklin and Shah). They further break down the categories into proximal and distal. Proximal refers to factors having a direct impact on health, while distal refers to factors that affect health indirectly. For example, living in a place where someone must drive to work every day could reduce physical activity, which is considered a distal factor. This reduced activity could then lead to weight gain, which would be considered a proximal factor.

To address the inter-relationship between proximal and distal factors, the ‘Health Impact Pyramid’ was created. This five-tier pyramid prioritizes what actions would be most beneficial for addressing community health, with the bottom tier having a greater overall impact by reaching more of the population. They suggest primarily focusing on the bottom two factors on the pyramid, which shows how much of an impact that planners can make in improving the health of its residents.

In the City of Opelika, one of the main barriers for families to have access to child care, medical care, and other socioeconomic factors is transportation. In addition, because there are significant cost and infrastructure barriers to improving bike lanes, highways, and public transit, it makes sense to ensure that residents can walk from one place to another. For this reason, addressing walkability allows me to look at accessibility to needs and amenities at the most basic level, making it an ideal measure for Opelika’s community health.