IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v119y2019icp162-169.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is promoting public transit an effective intervention for obesity?

Author

Listed:
  • She, Zhaowei
  • King, Douglas M.
  • Jacobson, Sheldon H.

Abstract

There is increasing evidence on the association between public transit usage and obesity. To further understand the causal impact of changes in county public transit usage on county obesity rates, this paper presents a longitudinal study on this topic. Annual health data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and transportation data from the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) were aggregated and matched at the county level, to create a panel data set with 227 counties from 45 states across two time periods, 2001 and 2009. Annual public transit funding, obtained from the National Transit Database (NTD), is chosen as an instrumental variable to simulate changes in public transit usage caused by exogenous changes in public policies. Possible confounding variables such as amount of leisure time physical activity, health care coverage and distribution of income are explicitly controlled. All time-invariant county level heterogeneities are implicitly controlled using first difference estimators. This study shows that promoting public transit in a county can effectively decrease the county obesity rate. Specifically, a one percentage point increase of frequent public transit riders in a county population is estimated to decrease the county population obesity rate by 0.473% points. This result supports findings in previous research that the extra amount of physical activity involved in public transit usage can have a statistically significant impact on obesity. In addition, this study also provides empirical evidence for the effectiveness of encouraging public transit usage as a public health intervention for obesity.

Suggested Citation

  • She, Zhaowei & King, Douglas M. & Jacobson, Sheldon H., 2019. "Is promoting public transit an effective intervention for obesity?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 162-169.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:119:y:2019:i:c:p:162-169
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2018.10.027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856417307206
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tra.2018.10.027?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David M. Cutler & Edward L. Glaeser & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2003. "Why Have Americans Become More Obese?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 93-118, Summer.
    2. Frank, Lawrence Douglas & Saelens, Brian E. & Powell, Ken E. & Chapman, James E., 2007. "Stepping towards causation: Do built environments or neighborhood and travel preferences explain physical activity, driving, and obesity?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(9), pages 1898-1914, November.
    3. Andrew J. Plantinga & Stephanie Bernell, 2007. "The Association Between Urban Sprawl And Obesity: Is It A Two‐Way Street?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5), pages 857-879, December.
    4. Eid, Jean & Overman, Henry G. & Puga, Diego & Turner, Matthew A., 2008. "Fat city: Questioning the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 385-404, March.
    5. Jacobson, Sheldon H. & King, Douglas M. & Yuan, Rong, 2011. "A note on the relationship between obesity and driving," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 772-776, September.
    6. Cao, Xinyu (Jason) & Xu, Zhiyi & Fan, Yingling, 2010. "Exploring the connections among residential location, self-selection, and driving: Propensity score matching with multiple treatments," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 797-805, December.
    7. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock, 1997. "Instrumental Variables Regression with Weak Instruments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 557-586, May.
    8. Chang, Annie & Miranda-Moreno, Luis & Cao, Jason & Welle, Ben, 2017. "The effect of BRT implementation and streetscape redesign on physical activity: A case study of Mexico City," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 337-347.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chun Yin & Bindong Sun, 2020. "Does Compact Built Environment Help to Reduce Obesity? Influence of Population Density on Waist–Hip Ratio in Chinese Cities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-16, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Charles J. Courtemanche & Joshua C. Pinkston & Christopher J. Ruhm & George L. Wehby, 2016. "Can Changing Economic Factors Explain the Rise in Obesity?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(4), pages 1266-1310, April.
    2. Courtemanche, Charles & Carden, Art, 2011. "Supersizing supercenters? The impact of Walmart Supercenters on body mass index and obesity," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 165-181, March.
    3. Charles Courtemanche & Garth Heutel & Patrick McAlvanah, 2015. "Impatience, Incentives and Obesity," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(582), pages 1-31, February.
    4. Georgia S. Papoutsi & Andreas C. Drichoutis & Rodolfo M. Nayga Jr., 2013. "The Causes Of Childhood Obesity: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 743-767, September.
    5. Charles L. Baum & Shin-Yi Chou, 2016. "Why has the prevalence of obesity doubled?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 251-267, June.
    6. Grafova, Irina B. & Freedman, Vicki A. & Lurie, Nicole & Kumar, Rizie & Rogowski, Jeannette, 2014. "The difference-in-difference method: Assessing the selection bias in the effects of neighborhood environment on health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 20-33.
    7. Courtemanche, Charles & Carden, Art, 2009. "The skinny on big box retailing: Wal-Mart, warehouse clubs, and obesity," MPRA Paper 25326, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Lin, Tao & Wang, Donggen & Guan, Xiaodong, 2017. "The built environment, travel attitude, and travel behavior: Residential self-selection or residential determination?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 111-122.
    9. Bento, Antonio M. & Franco, Sofia F. & Kaffine, Daniel, 2011. "Is there a double-dividend from anti-sprawl policies?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 135-152, March.
    10. Vincenzo Atella & Joanna Kopinska, 2011. "Body weight of Italians: the weight of Education," CEIS Research Paper 189, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 23 Mar 2011.
    11. Yuval Arbel & Chaim Fialkoff & Amichai Kerner, 2020. "The Chicken and Egg Problem: Obesity and the Urban Monocentric Model," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 576-606, November.
    12. Costa-Font, Joan & Györi, Mario, 2020. "The weight of patriarchy? Gender obesity gaps in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    13. Berning, Joshua P., 2012. "Access to Local Agriculture and Weight Outcomes," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(1), pages 57-71, April.
    14. Aysıt Tansel & Deniz Karaoğlan, 2019. "The Effect of Education on Health Behaviors and Obesity in Turkey: Instrumental Variable Estimates from a Developing Country," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(5), pages 1416-1448, December.
    15. Costa-Font, Joan & Mas, Núria, 2016. "‘Globesity’? The effects of globalization on obesity and caloric intake," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 121-132.
    16. Susan Chen & Raymond J. G. M. Florax & Samantha Snyder & Christopher C. Miller, 2010. "Obesity and Access to Chain Grocers," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 86(4), pages 431-452, October.
    17. Eid, Jean & Overman, Henry G. & Puga, Diego & Turner, Matthew A., 2008. "Fat city: Questioning the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 385-404, March.
    18. Kapinos, Kandice A. & Yakusheva, Olga & Eisenberg, Daniel, 2014. "Obesogenic environmental influences on young adults: Evidence from college dormitory assignments," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 98-109.
    19. Courtemanche, Charles & Pinkston, Joshua C. & Stewart, Jay, 2015. "Adjusting body mass for measurement error with invalid validation data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 275-293.
    20. Vincenzo Atella & Joanna Kopinska, 2014. "Body Weight, Eating Patterns, and Physical Activity: The Role of Education," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(4), pages 1225-1249, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:119:y:2019:i:c:p:162-169. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.