⁎A58 Is community severance a public health problem? Evidence from the Street Mobility project’s two London case studies

Abstract

Community severance, where transport infrastructure or traffic volume/speed prevents access to goods, services and people, is often mentioned by transport planners but is rarely studied. Severance probably affects travel patterns, social networks, and wellbeing but without measurement tools, this is uncertain. The UCL Street Mobility project is developing a questionnaire to measure community severance and its impacts on individuals in two London case studies. Questionnaire content was informed by a literature search of existing questionnaires. Additional questions were developed with input from community engagement workshops. After cognitive testing and piloting, a random sample of households was selected and invited to answer a self-completion questionnaire (n=100 in Hackney and n=200 in Camden). A mapping exercise was conducted with a subsample of face-to-face interviews in both areas (n=54) to explore neighbourhood boundaries and perceptions in more detail. Pilot work in the two case study areas (n=54, 52% women) is complete. Half the pilot sample was aged 55+; a minority lived alone (24%). and The mapping exercise showed that neighbourhood boundaries occasionally followed the main road, but were primarily drawn to include places frequently visited in day-to-day routines. Most participants reported their health was good or very good (75%) and did not have a disability that affected their ability to get around their area (79%). Nevertheless, the majority (62%) experienced problems getting around their local area: busy road or danger from traffic (37%), noise or air pollution (27%), and fear of crime (24%). When asked about their ability to walk to places, 45% reported the volume of traffic and 37% reported speed of traffic as problems. Participants commonly avoided the busiest road near their home (39% answered ‘yes’ or ‘yes, when I can’). Participants knew more neighbours on their side of their road (mean 6.6, SD 1.1) than on the opposite side (3.1 (0.82)) (p=0.002). Those who reported difficulties getting around their area saw and spoke to their neighbours less often than those without difficulties, however this was not statistically significant in our pilot sample. Recruitment is ongoing for the full sample (Jan 2015); we will report findings based on 300 participants across the two case studies. In our community severance case studies, participants frequently reported problems getting around their local area. These particularly related to road traffic or its consequences (e.g. pollution). In our larger sample, we will investigate associations with social networks and wellbeing in detail.