Geospatial Analysis of Electric Bicycle Accidents and Associations with the Built Environment
Description
Electric bicycle use is increasingly popular among youth in the United States. These devices are now also a cause of increases in youth accident-related injuries. In the United States, electric bike injuries increased by 293% and electric scooter injuries increased by 88% between 2019 to 2022.
The built environment can play a critical role in influencing health outcomes. Understanding how built environments influence health can lead to passive public health interventions that do not rely on behavior change and result in important impacts on the health and well-being of the population. The built environment where accidents involving electric personal mobility devices occur have an intuitive link. Yet, there are no studies focused on understanding what aspects of our street intersections, sidewalks, and neighborhoods impact risk of injury among youth. While prior work highlights associations with urban areas and street or sidewalk use, more granular information about the built environment in which these crashes occur among youth, and how environment impacts injury severity, remains poorly understood.
This study uses geospatial mapping, spatial regression, and machine learning techniques to better understand associations between built environment factors and electric bicycle injuries in California.
Community Advisory Board
This study is guided by a community advisory board of 5 individuals from national policy organizations, non-profits, local school boards, and local government officials who are advising on key study points and creating policy briefs from study results.
Links
[forthcoming]