pubhealth:

“All these connections between the social and physical environment potentiate each other and can be health-enhancing in ways you may not think about,” says Ana Diez Roux, epidemiologist from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, who directs a multimillion dollar longitudinal study—the MESA Neighborhood Study—aimed at clarifying the complex and interconnected ways that built environments affect behaviors and other risk factors for chronic disease, especially cardiovascular disease. Funded by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health as part of a larger parent study, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), the MESA Neighborhood Study is following approximately 6,800 people in six different U.S. locations: Chicago, Baltimore, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Los Angeles, New York City, and Forsythe County, North Carolina.

(via publichealthroll)