AUTHOR=Cranshaw Owen , Haworth Steven 

TITLE=Neighborhood Access to the Built Environment and Allostatic Load: A Systematic Review of the Use of Geographic Information Systems

JOURNAL=Public Health Reviews

VOLUME=Volume 45 - 2024

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.ssph-journal.org/journals/public-health-reviews/articles/10.3389/phrs.2024.1606624

DOI=10.3389/phrs.2024.1606624

ISSN=2107-6952

ABSTRACT=Geographic Information Systems (GIS) facilitate objective measurement of built environment access that may explain unequal health outcomes linked to living in stressful environments.This paper systematically reviews how spatial analysis has been used to measure relationships between access to the built environment and Allostatic Load (AL) or biomarkers relevant to the stress pathway.Systematic review, search date 13 July 2022 with methods published a priori. 23 studies from 14 countries included having used GIS measures to assess access to the built environment and biomarkers relevant to AL, with 17 being cross-sectional and 6 longitudinal. Just 2 studies assessed associations between GIS measures and AL, but 21 explored biomarkers relevant to the stress pathway. GIS was used to calculate density (how much of x within y) and proximity (how far from a to b).GIS measures of greenspace, the food environment, area-level demographics, and land-use measures were found to influence biomarkers relevant to the stress pathway. GIS use is extremely limited when measuring the built environment and its influence on AL but has been widely used to consider effects on individual biomarkers of stress.