SPEAKER: Throughout my life, I've
witnessed the direct impact of the place
where we live on our well-being and our health.
In my mother's hometown, Oruro, Bolivia,
people travel all night on dirt roads in hope of a day's work
at the mines.
In Mexico City, where I grew up, people
spend hours in dense traffic commuting
between multiple jobs.
And in Leuven, Belgium, where I did a master's degree,
people's commute to work is just a short bicycle ride.
Increasingly, living a long, healthy life
does not only depend on the exercise
you do or the food that you eat, but also
the actual geographic location of your home.
If you think about it, the social
and the physical environment of your neighborhood
may severely limit the choices and the resources
available to you.
For example, your motivation to exercise
can be constrained by living in a neighborhood that
lacks safe areas for exercise.
Researchers have looked into this,
and they have found that the social, the economic,
and the physical features of your neighborhood
are associated with individual's mortality, disability,
mental health, and in particular,
to cardiovascular disease.
Cardiovascular disease is a substantial public health
burden both in terms of health and costs in the United States.
In 2011, it was the underlying cause
of death of 31% of all deaths.
More specifically, hypertension and obesity
are two major risk factors of cardiovascular disease.
More than a third of Americans are obese and about a third
have hypertension.
Yet, there is very limited research
that looks at the whole spectrum of an individual's
geographic trajectory and their increasing
risk of cardiovascular disease.
So that's where my research comes in.
In my doctorate studies in epidemiology,
I'm seeking to uncover the long term impact of the place
where we live on our risk of obesity and hypertension.
I am examining how the place where people were born,
where they grew up, and where they are living now as adults,
might explain the risk of hypertension and obesity.
I aim to look at childhood as a critical stage in the life
course where healthy behaviors or norms are settled
that may extend into adulthood.
My hypothesis is that living in a neighborhood with lower
deprivation during early childhood
will be associated with a slower development
of cardiovascular disease risk.
To do this, I am using innovative tools
that allow me to do spatial analysis to analyze
the relationship between public health
data and the environment.
Geographic information systems allows
me to geocode individuals and link their data
to environmental features.
Advanced statistical modeling allows
me to assess that the longitudinal association
between individual health trajectories and environmental
features.
My team and I have created multiple maps
in which we display participants location at birth,
at childhood, and at adulthood.
And we have linked each of their locations
at each time point with environmental features,
like access to green space, or the neighborhood
socioeconomic status.
I have done a lot of coding, a lot of data management
and data analysis.
And I'm working with faculty all across disciplines.
I'm learning from geographers, sociologists, clinicians,
statisticians, cardiovascular and environmental
epidemiologists.
I see my work as an interdisciplinary collaboration
with researchers who share the goal of improving
cities and human health.
My research matters, because results from my thesis
may provide insight into critical stages in our life
when individual and community actions can meaningfully
improve our health and reduce neighborhood health
disparities.
Moreover, research of this type may
shed light into urban planning and designing cities in order
to improve population health.
So that one day, people in Bolivia,
in Mexico, in Belgium, in the United States,
or anywhere else in the world may
know better about how their neighborhood is
affecting their health.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]