Driven to distraction or a move in the right direction?

Transport provides many benefits, particularly access to education, employment, services, shops, and social networks. Walking and cycling (including to and from public transport) can provide enough physical activity to meet health recommendations. However, motor vehicles cause noise and air pollution; injuries & fatalities; community severance; stress; loss of land for social purposes; and increased sedentary behaviour. There are marked inequalities in benefits and harms from transport, particularly in car-oriented societies. Professor Mindell will use some of her recent research on road death rates, older people’s walking speed, and the barrier effect of busy roads to illustrate some of these issues.

About the speaker

Dr Jennifer Mindell, Professor of Public Health at UCL.

Dr Mindell conducts research on transport and health, particularly community severance (the barrier effects of busy roads) and road casualty rates for different travel modes. Her main role is leading the UCL team that works with NatCen Social Research (as the Joint Health Surveys Unit) to run the Health Survey for England, the secondmost downloaded government dataset on the UK Data Service. A public health doctor, she is based in UCL’s Research Department of Epidemiology & Public Health; she is also the Health lead for UCL’s Transport Institute. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Transport and Health; former Co-chair (Science) of the Transport and Health Science Group and convenor of its Latin American network; and leads for transport and health on the UK Faculty of Public Health’s Health Improvement Committee, which she chairs.