“The percentage of adults aged 20 and over in the U.S. classified as obese has slightly decreased, from 41.9% in 2020 to 40.3% in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the prevalence of severe obesity has increased to 9.4% during the same time period. Studies have shown obesity is more prevalent in racial and ethnic minorities; to better understand the root causes of obesity in these communities, and to come up with effective solutions to address the problem, we need tools to help us understand how environmental and structural factors contribute to obesity.

“I’m looking to leverage geospatial big data to build a new tool, called the Visitation-Based Obesogenic Environment Measurement, to examine how obesity disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities, based on interactions between individual behaviors like going to the gym and eating healthy—or not—and socioeconomic/environmental factors. Monitoring visitation data—how much parks, gyms, and health food stores are actually being used—will give us greater insight into how people’s behaviors contribute to obesity, particularly in minority populations that face greater challenges accessing resources.

“I’m hoping this tool can help policymakers come up with more targeted solutions. For example, if we find a certain population with high obesity rates isn’t visiting health food stores or going to gyms, public health officials can improve access to these facilities. The tool can also measure the success of different interventions over time.”