We are pleased to invite you to: Health and Wellbeing Maurice Bloch Annual Lecture Series

Title: Urban Design for Walkability and Cancer Prevention and Control 

Date: Tuesday 17 September 2024

Time: 1-2pm, tea and coffee will be served beforehand at 12.30pm 

Presenter: Dr Andrew G Rundle

Chair: Dr Jon Olsen

Venue: Room 103A Clarice Pears building.

Abstract: The urban design concept of walkability describes a series of urban design features theorized to promote engagement in pedestrian activity, and a growing body of research indicates that higher neighborhood walkability is associated with greater physical activity and lower adiposity among residents.  There is also emerging data that show that higher neighborhood walkability is also associated with lower risk for the health consequences of obesity and sedentary lifestyles.  This lecture will describe recent work on neighborhood walkability and resident’s physical activity patterns and will present data showing that higher neighborhood walkability is associated lower risk of obesity related cancers and lower weight, and less weight gain, among cancer survivors.  

If you cannot attend in person but would like to join online please do so with this zoom link https://uofglasgow.zoom.us/j/85404496046?pwd=TEFtcGwvSjg1NmVqOFYyUkcyQk9idz09 

Meeting ID: 854 0449 6046 Passcode: 718380

BIO:

Dr. Andrew Rundle is a Professor of Epidemiology in the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.  He directs the Built Environment and Health Research Group (beh.columbia.edu), a trans-disciplinary team of researchers studying how neighborhood built, economic, business and social environments influence health, particularly for issues related energy balance and obesity risk. He and his colleagues have been studying how urban design that supports physical activity affects the incidence, and outcomes, of obesity related cancers. 

His work on built environments has been used as part of the scientific rationale for the New York City ‘Active Design Guidelines’ which refocuses urban design and architecture to support physical activity, for the Mayor’s Food Policy Task Force’s ‘Food Retail Expansion to Support Health’ (FRESH) initiative, the International WELL Building Institute’s WELL Building and WELL Community design standards and the Center for Active Design’s Fitwel certification program.