In April, I wrote a piece on the multitude of ways over-reliance on vehicles harms the health of Louisville residents. One of the most common way’s cars have an effect on personal health is by encouraging a sedentary lifestyle. Long commutes can have people sitting in their cars for hours each day just to get to and from work, not to mention all the other activities someone may have to drive to. This was all discussed in the previous post to a small extent, but I wanted to attempt to map this out within Jefferson County and provide more background on how long vehicle commutes can affect a person’s health.
Literature that studies relationships between commute length and health often use mileage to measure commute length, this is difficult to use for mapping purposes as the American Community Survey only collects data on commute time, not distance. Regardless, they can show some of the important general trends. One of these studies has shown that longer commutes, especially in private vehicles, are associated with increases in depression, stress, and anxiety. Longer commutes have also been connected to decreases in physical activity, which may lead to increased risk of obesity, higher blood pressure, and cardiovascular issues.
There are some studies that use commute time as a measure relative to certain health factors. Commutes over 20 minutes have been connected to lower rates of socialization. Daily commutes over 30 minutes have been shown to increase stress, anxiety and dissatisfaction. Those with commutes over 60 minutes were more likely to have subjective complaints about health, depression, sleep issues, and likely more. This creates a dichotomy with active commuting (walking, biking, etc.) which has been linked to a variety of positive health benefits, even when the commute is pretty long. It is worth noting that the health risks mentioned are not the entirety of possible risks, but some of the most well-researched.
The average one-way commute time within Louisville is 22 minutes, meaning Louisvillians spend around 44 minutes a day on average just commuting to work. This number does include those who walk, bike, and take public transit to work, but those commuters account for less than 3% of the city’s total commuters. Almost everyone is driving to work in some way, with 72% driving to work alone.
The web app below contains a layer with commute times for census tracts within Louisville and a layer from the CDC that contains information on health within the tract. These layers can be swiped between to compare, although the symbology for both are preset. Make sure to click on the tracts to see all the information in the pop-ups.
To view the app in another window or on mobile, click here.
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