This chart, via Jennifer Keesmaat, shows the important nexus between the infrastructure design and public health.. As evident from the chart, when it comes to building healthy communities the United States has a long way to go in catching up with their counterparts and the huge (no pun intended) disparity in % of obese people shows how unhealthy we are as a nation.

Health implications of city design: more walking, cycling and transit means less obesity + chronic disease (via @jen_keesmaat on Twitter)

Spurred by this tweet, I went looking for data on healthcare spending in the US vs. other OECD countries. Sigh! The chart below shows how much we spend on health compared to other countries (slightly older data).  If we spent a few billion dollars on building more walking/biking/transit infrastructure instead of building more highways and encouraged more people to walk/bike/ride transit, may be we don’t have to incur such an expensive medical bills after all.  Despite all the evidence, our lawmakers seems to be favoring the highway lobbies (and the optics of ribbon cutting for new highways) but talk endlessly about healthcare spending every election cycle!

U.S health spending vs. other countries

Here is a snapshot of the US health spending, according to the OECD:

• Health expenditure per capita: $8,713
• Expenditure as a pct. of GDP: 16.4%
•  Obesity rate: 35.3%
• Life expectancy: 78.8 yrs

“Health spending in the United States (excluding investment expenditure in the health sector) was 16.4% of GDP in 2013, well above the OECD average of 8.9% and the next highest spenders – the Netherlands (11.1%), Switzerland (11.1%) and Sweden (11.0%). The share of GDP spent on healthcare has remained unchanged since 2009 and health spending growth has matched economic growth. The share of government spending in the United States as a share of total spending on health has increased from around 44% in 2000 to above 48% by 2013. Over this period there has been an increase in health coverage for the population – in 2006, Medicare Part D, a voluntary drug benefit programme for seniors and certain disabled persons was introduced.

(Source: APTA)

Have you ever wondered what is the key to a good health and long life – I knew that it has to be the public transport.  Look at the Europeans —  healthy & happy– riding their bikes, trains, trams, buses, etc.  If you still don’t believe what I’ve said, you now have the proof.

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) has released a report that explores ways that public transportation affects human health, and ways to incorporate these impacts into transport policy and planning decisions.

Evaluating Public Transportation Health Benefits, a study conducted for APTA by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute aggregates the findings of several recent studies and concludes that people living in transit-oriented “smart growth” communities enjoy several health benefits, not seen in other communities, including residents drive less, exposing them to a lower risk of fatal vehicle accidents.

People who live or work in communities with high quality public transportation tend to drive significantly less and rely more on alternative modes (walking,cycling and public transit) than they would in more automobile-oriented areas. This reduces traffic crashes and pollution emissions, increases physical fitness and mental health, andprovides access to medical care and healthy food. These impacts are significant in magnitude compared with other planning objectives, but are often overlooked or undervalued inconventional transport planning.

Various methods can be used to quantify and monetize(measure in monetary units) these health impacts. This analysis indicates that improving publictransit can be one of the most cost effective ways to achieve public health objectives, and publichealth improvements are among the largest benefits provided by high quality public transit andtransit-oriented development.

Some of the key findings from the report are listed below:

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