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BACKGROUND: Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been used for many years to analyze proximity to built environment features. The characterization of public access to places like fast food restaurants and grocery stores provides a mechanism to evaluate the attribution of such features to human health outcomes (particularly chronic diseases that may be related to poor diet and lack of physical activity). In this project, we created GIS-based data measures and incorporated them into the profile reports displayed on the web portal for the Florida Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Program.
METHODS: ArcGIS 10x software was used with the US Census American Community Survey data to estimate population around parks, trails, fast food restaurants, grocery stores, and busy roadways. Some of these data sets are publicly available from the Florida Geographic Data Library, and some of them had to be downloaded from Florida government agencies and geocoded based on physical address. The percentage of a county’s population within ½ mile (walking distance) for most of these features was estimated, as a proxy for ease of access. The resulting data was combined into profile reports that are available at the state, county, and ZIP code levels.
RESULTS: The set of indicators on the web portal www.floridatracking.com provide a unique resource to look at built environment measures, such as proximity to busy roadways, access to parks/trails, and percentage of population living near healthy food sources and fast food establishments. These data sets are part of profile reports that are available at the county and ZIP code level for all Florida jurisdictions.
CONCLUSIONS: The Florida EPHT Program maintains the GIS-derived measures discussed here as an epidemiological surveillance tool to estimate community access to built environment features that can lead to positive or negative health outcomes. The Community Health Profile Reports developed can be utilized to compare communities and to highlight environmental disparities. Many of the measures are also available on the mobile portion of our website, which was specifically designed for smartphones and tablet users. It is our hope that such reports will be used by non-profit groups, public health partners, and other stakeholders to engage communities about the ways in which the built environment contributes to public health outcomes.