Haneen Khreis presents at METRANS Summer 2018 speaker series on Health Impacts of Urban Transport Planning and Policy

CARTEEH’s Haneen Khreis presented compelling findings on the intersection of transportation and health at the METRANS Summer 2018 speaker series June 1, 2018. Transportation planning and policy play a significant role in promoting or degrading human health, especially in urban areas. The health impacts of transportation have become clearer in recent years and show that transportation-related practices and environmental exposures contribute to a substantial but preventable burden of disease. These impacts occur through motor-vehicle crashes, air pollution, noise, heat, greenhouse gases and decreasing green space, physical activity, and access to health promoting opportunities or services. Some of the more difficult to quantify but emerging pathways include community severance, social exclusion, stress and electromagnetic fields. Despite this emergent knowledge, transportation planning and policy tend to undermine these impacts. In this presentation, Dr. Haneen Khreis will summarize the most up-to-date evidence linking transportation planning and policy to public health and highlight some of the underutilized tools for assessing and quantifying these impacts. Khreis will identify research gaps and discuss how a public health approach can facilitate positive change in transportation planning and policy.