Spatial Temporal Aggregated Predictors to Examine Built Environment Health Effects

Abstract

We propose the spatial-temporal aggregated predictor (STAP) modeling framework to address measurement and estimation issues that arise when assessing the relationship between built environment features (BEF) and health outcomes. Many BEFs can be mapped as point locations and thus traditional exposure metrics are based on the number of features within a pre-specified spatial unit. The size of the spatial unit–or spatial scale–that is most appropriate for a particular health outcome is unknown and its choice inextricably impacts the estimated health effect. A related issue is the lack of knowledge of the temporal scale–or the length of exposure time that is necessary for the BEF to render its full effect on the health outcome. The proposed STAP model enables investigators to estimate both the spatial and temporal scales for a given BEF in a data-driven fashion, thereby providing a flexible solution for measuring the relationship between outcomes and spatial proximity to point-referenced exposures. Simulation studies verify the validity of our method for estimating the scales as well as the association between availability of BEFs’ and health outcomes. We apply this method to estimate the spatial-temporal association between supermarkets and BMI using data from the Multi-Ethnic Atherosclerosis Study, demonstrating the method’s applicability in cohort studies.