ITS Berkeley

Urban Health and Health Equity in Latin American Cities: What COVID-19 is Teaching Us

Roux, AV Diez
Barrientos-Gutierrez, T
Caiaffa, WT
Miranda, J
Rodriguez, D
Sarmiento, O
Slesinksi, S
Vergaga, A
2020

Latin America is the most unequal and urbanized region of the world. The physical and social environments of Latin American cities, the lack of public health and health-care infrastructure, and pronounced social and health inequities make these cities especially vulnerable to COVID-19. It is too soon to know the true impact of the pandemic and how it will compare to the many ongoing health and environmental challenges facing Latin American cities. In this commentary, we highlight a few key lessons with major implications not only for COVID-19 but for urban health and health...

Physical Disorders and Poor Self-Rated Health in Adults Living in Four Latin American Cities: A Multilevel Approach

Vaz, C
Andrade, A
Silva, U
Rodriguez, D
Wang, X
Moore, K
Friche, A
Roux, AV Diez
Caiaffa, WT
2020
Considering that urban environments may affect self-rated health through behavioral and psychosocial mechanisms, the aim of this study was to investigate the association between self-rated health and perceived urban environment characteristics among adults living in four Latin American cities. Data is from a population-based survey by Development Bank of Latin America, encompassing adults between 20 and 60 years old in Buenos Aires, Lima, Mexico City, and Panama City. Self-rated health was measured using a single question and the response options were categorized as poor and good. The...

Built Environment Profiles for Latin American Urban Settings: The SALURBAL Study

Sarmiento, OL
Useche, A
Rodriguez, DA
Dronova, I
Guaje, O
Montes, F
Stankov, I
Wilches, M
Bilal, U
Wang, X
Guzman, L
Pena, F
Quistberg, D
Guerra-Gomez, J
Roux, AV Diez
2021

The built environment of cities is complex and influences social and environmental determinants of health. In this study we, 1) identified city profiles based on the built landscape and street design characteristics of cities in Latin America and 2) evaluated the associations of city profiles with social determinants of health and air pollution. Landscape and street design profiles of 370 cities were identified using finite mixture modeling. For landscape, we measured fragmentation, isolation, and shape. For street design, we measured street connectivity, street length, and directness. We...

Greenness and Excess Deaths from Heat in 323 Latin American Cities: Do Associations Vary According to Climate Zone or Green Space Configuration?

Schinasi, LH
Bakhtsiyarava, M
Sánchez, BN
Kephart, JL
Ju, Y
Arunachalam, S
Gouveia, N
Caiaffa, WT
O'Neill, MS
Dronova, I
Roux, AV Diez
Rodriguez, D
2023
Green vegetation may protect against heat-related death by improving thermal comfort. Few studies have investigated associations of green vegetation with heat-related mortality in Latin America or whether associations are modified by the spatial configuration of green vegetation. We used data from 323 Latin American cities and meta-regression models to estimate associations between city-level greenness, quantified using population-weighted normalized difference vegetation index values and modeled as three-level categorical terms, and excess deaths from heat (heat excess death fractions [heat...

Research Translation to Promote Urban Health in Latin America: The SALURBAL Experience

Slesinski, SC
Indvik, K
Bolinaga, A
Caiaffa, WT
Rodriguez, D
2024

In highly urbanized and unequal Latin America, urban health and health equity research are essential to effective policymaking. To ensure the application of relevant and context-specific evidence to efforts to reduce urban health inequities, urban health research in Latin America must incorporate strategic research translation efforts. Beginning in 2017, the Urban Health in Latin America (SALURBAL) project implemented policy-relevant research and engaged policymakers and the public to support the translation of research findings. Over 6 years, more than 200 researchers across eight...

Streamlining Connected Automated Vehicle Test Data Collection and Evaluation in the Hardware-in-the-Loop Environment

Fu, Zhe
Liu, Hao, PhD
Lu, Xiao-Yun, PhD
2020

Quality data collection, processing, and analysis are foundational to good research, policy making and regulation development. With the rapid development of Connected Automated Vehicles (CAV) technologies, it is urgent for both researchers and policy makers to obtain and evaluate good quality CAV data to better understand CAV impacts. CAV hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests can expedite CAV performance evaluation and system implementation. This research aims at equipping an existing HIL test tool with data management functions. To this end, a database instance on MySQL has been integrated...

A Cooperative V2V Alert System to Mitigate Vehicular Traffic Shock Waves

Vince Rabsatt, Reuben
Gerla, Mario
2018

We address the problem of shockwave formation in uncoordinated highway traffic. The problem is caused by the combination of heavy traffic and small traffic perturbations or unexpected drivers actions. We propose a novel distributed communication protocol that helps mitigate upstream shockwave formation even with extremely low system penetration rates. Based on traffic information ahead, the Cooperative Advanced Driver Assistance System (CADAS) recommends non-intuitive velocity reductions in order to redistribute traffic more uniformly and eliminate traffic peaks. Simulation results show...

Not So Fast: A Study of Traffic Delays, Access, and Economic Activity in the San Francisco Bay Area

Taylor, Brian
Osman, Taner
Thomas, Trevor
Mondschein, Andrew
2016

The San Francisco Bay Area regularly experiences some of the most severe traffic congestion in the U.S. This past year both Inrix and the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) ranked the Bay Area third only to Washington D.C. and Los Angeles in the time drivers spend stuck in traffic. The TTI estimated that traffic congestion cost the Bay Area economy a staggering $3.1 billion in 2014 (Lomax et al., 2015). Such estimates are based on the premise that moving more slowly than free-flow speeds wastes time and fuel, and that these time and fuel costs multiplied over millions of travelers in...

Planning Workshop - Seminar Series

Argote-Cabanero, Juan
Camel, Madonna
Hernandez, Maribel
2016

The University of California Center on Economic Competitiveness in Transportation (UCCONNECT) together with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) organized four seminars in areas of interest to the Division of Transportation Planning (DOTP). UCCONNECT and DOTP collaborated to identify topics and speakers within the consortium who could present their latest research findings on the selected areas. Each session in the series consisted of a 1-2 hour presentation followed by a Q&A discussion moderated by an expert in the field. The title of the first event in the...

The California Fuel Tax Swap

Wachs, Martin
Garrett, Mark
Brown, Anne
2016

This project documents and analyzes the recent change in California transportation revenue collection programs that end discontinued the state sales tax on motor fuels and increased the state per gallon excise taxes on motor fuels.