COVID-19 impacts on mobility, environment, and health of active transportation users.

Active transportation could be an effective way to promote healthy physical activity, especially during pandemics like COVID-19. A comprehensive evaluation of health outcomes derived from COVID-19 induced active transportation can assist multiple stakeholders in revisiting strategies and priorities for supporting active transportation during and beyond the pandemic. We performed a two-step reviewing process by combining a scoping review with a narrative review to summarize published literature addressing the influence of COVID-19 on mobility and the environment that can lead to various health pathways and health outcomes associated with active transportation. We summarized the COVID-19 induced changes in active transportation demand, built environment, air quality, and physical activity. The results demonstrated that, since the pandemic began, bike-sharing users dropped significantly while recreational bike trips and walking activities increased in some areas. Meanwhile, there have been favorable changes to the air quality and the built environment for active transportation users. We then discussed how these changes impact health outcomes during the pandemic and their implications for urban planning and policymaking. This review also suggests that walking and biking can make up for the reduced physical activities during the pandemic, helping people stay active and healthy.

Health-Based Geographic Information Systems for Mapping and Risk Modeling of Infectious Diseases and COVID-19 to Support Spatial Decision-Making.

Infectious diseases remain an essential global challenge in public health. For instance, novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has resulted in significant negative impacts on public health, infecting more than 214 million people and causing 4.47 million deaths worldwide as of August 2021. Geographic Information Systems have played an essential role in managing, storing, analyzing, and mapping disease and related risk information. This article provides an overview of a broad topic on applications of GIS into infectious disease research. Our review follows the framework of human-environment interactions, focusing on the environmental and social factors that cause the disease outbreak and the role of humans in disease control, including public health policies and interventions such as social distancing/face covering practice and mobility modeling. The work identifies key spatial decision-making issues where GIS becomes valued in the agenda for infectious disease research and highlights the importance of adopting science-based policies to protect the public during the current and future pandemics.

Impacts of COVID-19 Induced Active Transportation Demand on the Built Environment and Public Health [Project]

Active transportation has been acknowledged as a healthy, low-impact physical exercise that can reduce the risk of health problems associated with a sedentary lifestyle and can be enjoyed by people of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, more Americans chose to bicycle and walk as a safer transportation mode to reduce exposure to the virus by maintaining social distancing. The El Paso MPO reports that cities like Guadalajara and Mexico City observed significant increases in active transportation users both during and after the lockdown period. Like other cities across the USA, El Paso implemented a contingency plan by converting the traffic lanes to dedicated bike lanes in order to meet the increasing demand. These policies may have significant impact on public health. Despite the many well-documented health benefits of active transportation (CARTEEH Brief on Transportation and Health: A Conceptual Model), sharing the roads with motorized traffic can expose the bicyclist and pedestrians to various traffic-related risks, including injury risks, and potential increases in exposure to noise, and air pollutants. A study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that traffic fatalities involving non-motorized users increased in recent years. Traffic-related air pollutants may also negatively impact non-motorized users' health, although the net impacts are highly context-specific. These risks are known to be context-specific and have been shown to depend on baseline concentrations of air pollutants and noise levels, which is partly determined by the study area and the trip routes. However, the synthesis of the literature suggests that overall, the health benefits of active transport through the pathway of increased physical activity strongly outweigh the detrimental effects of traffic incidents and air pollution exposure on health, while less is known about noise exposure with suggestions that it declines when road users switch to active transportation. In this project we will comprehensively evaluate the health impacts for active transport use in order to provide city and state transportation, planning, and public health agencies with data-driven tools and recommendations for implementing bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure to meet this new demand and maintain a healthy and sustainable built environment. This project aims to answer the following three objectives. (1) Estimate the COVID-19-induced active transportation demand. (2) Assess its potential health benefits and harms of active transport through four pathways (i.e., increasing activity, traffic crashes, air pollution, and noise) as well as other less-known benefits such as stress relief and mental health. (3) Develop data-driven tools and recommendations for implementing a bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure to meet and maintain this new demand.