Neighborhood Physical Environment and Changes in Body Mass Index: Results From the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

Longitudinal associations between neighborhood characteristics and body mass index (BMI; weight (kg)/height (m)2) were assessed from 2000 to 2011 among 5,919 participants in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. The perceived availability of healthy food and walking environment were assessed via surveys, and 1-mile (1.6-km) densities of supermarkets, fruit-and-vegetable stores, and recreational facilities were obtained through a commercial database.

Spatially Modelling the Association Between Access to Recreational Facilities and Exercise: The 'Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis'.

Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between the built environment and physical activity. However these studies assume that these relationships are invariant over space. In this study, we introduce a novel method to analyze the association between access to recreational facilities and exercise allowing for spatial heterogeneity.

A common spatial factor analysis model for measured neighborhood-level characteristics: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

The purpose of this study was to reduce the dimensionality of a set of neighborhood-level variables collected on participants in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) while appropriately accounting for the spatial structure of the data. A common spatial factor analysis model in the Bayesian setting was utilized in order to properly characterize dependencies in the data. Results suggest that use of the spatial factor model can result in more precise estimation of factor scores, improved insight into the spatial patterns in the data, and the ability to more accurately assess associations between the neighborhood environment and health outcomes.

Improving retrospective characterization of the food environment for a large region in the United States during a historic time period.

Access to healthy foods has received increasing attention due to growing prevalence of obesity and diet-related health conditions yet there are major obstacles in characterizing the local food environment. This study developed a method to retrospectively characterize supermarkets for a single historic year, 2005, in 19 counties in 6 states in the USA using a supermarket chain-name list and two business databases. Data preparation, merging, overlaps, added-value amongst various approaches and differences by census tract area-level socio-demographic characteristics are described.