UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The latest episode of the Growing Impact podcast features Melissa Bopp, an associate professor of kinesiology in the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State. Her research looks to understand and promote physical activity and diverse populations and settings. On the podcast, Bopp discusses her seed grant project titled “Engaging underserved communities and environmental assessment for healthy living.” She and her colleagues are examining the role of the built and natural environments and their influence on physical activity, healthy eating and air quality.
Bopp and her team are working in an area south of the City of Pittsburgh called the Mon Valley. This region, a 70-mile strip of land that follows the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh to the Pennsylvania/West Virginia border, is an area that has seen steady economic decline since the departure of the steel industry in the late 20th century.
“One of the things that we're aiming to do with this project is to conduct environmental assessments throughout the different communities in the Mon Valley to understand the strengths of the communities in terms of resources available for promoting healthy living,” Bopp said.
The project is exploring objective data, such as the availability of parks, trails and playgrounds. The team is also investigating subjective data, such as a community’s perception of resources, like the quality of the sidewalks in the neighborhood.
“We can tell by audit that sidewalks in your neighborhood are pretty good,” Bopp said. “However, if you perceive the sidewalks in your neighborhood to be dangerous, cracked or discontinuous so that you really don't feel like you could safely go for a walk, you're less likely to use them.”
Bopp said it is crucial to document information like this in underserved communities because it is the first step for a community to be able to advocate for change.
“If you can present information to decision-makers about tying a lack of resources to disproportionately higher rate of disease, disability and death, that should make a more compelling argument,” she said.
Growing Impact is a podcast by the Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE). It features Penn State researchers who have been awarded IEE seed grants and discusses their foundational work as they further their projects. The podcast is available on multiple platforms, including Apple, Google, Amazon, and Spotify.