Developing geospatial data management, recruitment, and analysis techniques for physical activity research

This research project, funded by the National Institute of Health, brings together urban planning and public health researchers to study the relationship between the built environment and physical activity among adult Latina and African-American women in Austin and Houston, respectively. The project required the development of a number of innovative techniques. For recruiting women from diverse contexts in terms of both the built and socioeconomic environments to ensure geographic variability, we developed measures of street intersection density and socioeconomic status (SES) to create a recruitment matrix. For the analytical portion of the study, a number of field survey instruments are used to measure the built environment and available physical activity resources. The article describes issues in geocoding participants, recruitment matrix mapping, and the integration of surveys to GIS information. Although the project is ongoing, some lessons learned pertaining to the use of geospatial data are described. Work is funded by NIH 1R01CA109403, Rebecca E. Lee, Principal Investigator.