What’s this about?
The Built Environment & Health (BEH) project is an interdisciplinary program of research at Columbia University. Led by epidemiologist Andrew Rundle, BEH uses spatial data to examine the implications of the built environment, including land use, public transit, and housing, for physical activity, diet, obesity, and other aspects of health. With a focus on New York City, BEH research will inform public policy to promote health in the city and metropolitan area. BEH is affiliated with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars program at Columbia.
Working Group Promotes Interdisciplinary Research on Population Health
In the summer of 2004, the Columbia site of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars program began a new Working Groups program to promote interdisciplinary research on population health. One of the first to be funded was the working group on physical activity, diet, and obesity. This group, the forerunner of the BEH project, was led by Andrew Rundle in Epidemiology and co-organized by Kathryn Neckerman at ISERP. Core group members conducted pilot research in preparation for a major grant proposal submitted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the fall of 2004. The proposal was funded and now supplies the core of the group's funding.
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