Living Near a Road Raises Blood Pressure Risk

A study of 5,400 post-menopausal women in the San Diego metropolitan area has found a significant link between living near a major roadway and the risk of high blood pressure. Gregory Wellenius, assistant professor of epidemiology in the Brown University School of Public Health, and colleagues used data from the Women’s Health Initiative together with mapping software to measure the distance from each woman's home to a major roadway and a database to determine each neighborhood's abundance of supermarkets and fast-food restaurants. After controlling for age, ethnicity, smoking status, education, household income, cholesterol, body-mass index, diabetes history, physical activity level, and local food quality, results showed that women who lived within 100 meters of a highway or major arterial road had a 22% greater risk of hypertension than women who lived at least 1,000 meters away. "The public health message is that we need to take into consideration the health of the population when planning neighborhoods, when planning transportation systems, and when deciding where new highways are going to go, and how we might be able to mitigate traffic or its effects," concluded Professor Wellenius.