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Neighbourhoods and health: a GIS approach to measuring community resource accessibility

¹ GeoHealth Laboratory, Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
² Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr J Pearce
GeoHealth Laboratory, Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8020, New Zealand; jamie.pearce{at}canterbury.ac.nz

Objective: Recent studies suggest an association between the contextual attributes of neighbourhoods and the health status of residents. However, there has been a scarcity of studies that have directly measured the material characteristics of neighbourhoods theorised to have an impact on health and health inequalities. This paper describes the development of an innovative methodology to measure geographical access to a range of community resources that have been empirically linked to health. Geographical information systems (GIS) were applied to develop precise measures of community resource accessibility for small areas at a national scale.

Design: Locational access to shopping, education, recreation, and health facilities was established for all 38 350 census meshblocks across New Zealand. Using GIS, distance measures were calculated from the population weighted centroid of each meshblock to 16 specific types of facilities theorised as potentially health related. From these data, indices of community resource accessibility for all New Zealand neighbourhoods were constructed.

Results: Clear regional variations in geographical accessibility to community resources exist across the country, particularly between urban and rural areas of New Zealand. For example, the average travel time to the nearest food shop ranged from less than one minute to more than 244 minutes. Noticeable differences were also apparent between neighbourhoods within urban areas.

Conclusions: Recent advances in GIS and computing capacity have made it feasible to directly measure access to health related community resources at the neighbourhood level. The construction of access indices for specific community resources will enable health researchers to examine with greater precision, variations in the material characteristics of neighbourhoods and the pathways through which neighbourhoods impact on specific health outcomes.

Keywords: neighbourhoods; community resources; accessibility; geographical information systems (GIS)

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J Pearce, K Mason, R Hiscock, and P Day A national study of neighbourhood access to gambling opportunities and individual gambling behaviour J Epidemiol Community Health, October 1, 2008; 62(10): 862 - 868. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J Pearce, R Hiscock, T Blakely, and K Witten The contextual effects of neighbourhood access to supermarkets and convenience stores on individual fruit and vegetable consumption J Epidemiol Community Health, March 1, 2008; 62(3): 198 - 201. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. Pearce, K. Witten, R. Hiscock, and T. Blakely Are socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods deprived of health-related community resources? Int. J. Epidemiol., April 1, 2007; 36(2): 348 - 355. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]