Spatiotemporal dynamics of urban health: Physiological data driven strategies for enhancing urban health and wellbeing
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2021
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The starting point for this research was the emergence of physiological data as a source of information that can help us understand how our interactions with the urban environment affect the human body. There is significant potential in extending existing methods for physiological data analysis in the urban domain in a way that maximises the benefits at the individual and the city scale. Physiological data could be used to identify the least stressful route, but there is currently a lack of research on their incorporation in pathfinding studies. The area of prediction of physiological responses during outdoor walking has also been understudied.
This study aims to address these issues by designing a methodology for collection and analysis of physiological data in the urban space. The methodology incorporates three components: (1) the collection and analysis of physiological data at an individual level, (2) the hotspot analysis of physiological responses at a city scale, and (3) the utilisation of the collected data in models for prediction of physiological responses, and pathfinding methods for the identification of the least stressful route. The methods and algorithms for each component of the methodology are calibrated using data collected in Sydney from experiments organised by the author, and publicly available data from a previous study conducted in Zürich.
The study acts as a pilot project that will pave the way towards large-scale experiments in this area. Its main contribution is that it supports the construction of tools for individuals who want to understand how different routes might affect their physiological responses, and have a calm experience while walking in the urban environment. It can also help researchers identify which parts of the city are associated with an increased intensity of physiological responses, possibly indicating increased stress levels. The construction of a theoretical and conceptual framework supporting the construction of the methodology also enriches current research on the links between urban environment, activity and physiological responses. Other methodological and practical contributions include the development of methods for analysing how movement may influence physiological responses as a physical stressor, and their incorporation in the designed methodology; also, the development of methods for identifying physical and psychological stressors from contextual data, based on freely available OpenStreetMap and Point of Interest data, as an alternative to image-based analysis which was used in previous studies.
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