Living in urban sprawls can have negative effect on life expectancy: Report

Commuters board suburban trains during the evening rush hour at Churchgate railway station in Mumbai February 25, 2015. India will increase investment in its overloaded railway network to 8.5 trillion rupees ($137 billion) over the next five years, the government said on Thursday, promising to modernise existing tracks and introduce faster trains.Picture taken February 25, 2015. REUTERS/Shailesh Andrade (INDIA - Tags: TRANSPORT BUSINESS POLITICS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) - RTR4R7V0

Living in urban sprawls can have a negative effect on a person’s life expectancy, according to a study done by the University of Texas.

A report by Hindustan Times stated that factors such as life expectancy, economic mobility, transportation choices and personal health and safety improve in areas that are not densely sprawling.

“People who live in poorer socioeconomic areas often have to overcome more adversities, like greater travel times just to get to work, school or the grocery store,” researcher Shima Hamidi of the University of Texas told the paper.

The impact of this can be seen on their health. According to a 2017 report published by the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), there was a rise in cases of diabetes in India, and hypertension has become common among urban men in the country.

The University of Texas study, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, also points towards urban concepts such as clustering of similar industry, diversity, regional connectivity, walkability and proximity to urban amenities.

Previous studies have also pointed towards health hazards to be considered while designing urban spaces.

According to the paper, researchers at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder discovered that children raised in rural environment have lower risk of mental illness as compared to those raised in cities.