Tong, Huan; (2022) Urban planning and public health: a sound environment perspective with a data-driven approach. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The impact of the sound environment on human health has become a growing concern among the general public, policymakers, and urban planners worldwide. However, previous studies focus on individuals rather than cities/areas when investigating sound environment planning and health issues. Further research at a large scale or population level remains lacking. Therefore, this research aims to examine the relationships between urban planning and public health from a sound environment perspective at three large scales, including city/micro, regional/meso, and national/macro scales. It is achieved by a data-driven approach. Specifically, massive geo-spatial data from governmental open data platforms are processed based on GIS technique and used for statistical analysis, including hypothesis tests, Spearman correlation, ridge regression, and Bayesian model. This research provides evidence of the critical importance of urban planning on noise-induced public health problems (involving noise complaints, sleep deprivation, and mental health) at large scales. At city/micro and regional/meso scales, the results show that the noise complaint is not only related to urban spatial morphology, but also to socio-economic conditions. Contextual urban factors play a more significant role in affecting noise perception than the actual noise level. At the national/macro scale, traffic noise can significantly contribute to variations in sleep deprivation and mental health problems among counties. The finding also indicates that urban sprawl patterns play a significant role rather than the magnitude of urbanisation with respect to adverse health effects of sound environment; furthermore, linear cities could confront more serious noise-induced health problems. These findings have valuable theoretical and practical implications. It herein could be used to identify urban planning factors that should receive more attention when addressing noise-induced public health issues. Furthermore, the results are useful for achieving healthier cities by developing more effective noise management strategies and establishing a better planning layout.

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