ArticlePloS one2014
A novel method to evaluate the community built environment using photographs--Environmental Profile of a Community Health (EPOCH) photo neighbourhood evaluation tool.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT03225586 (Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology Study), which is not on this map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology Study
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Urban Health Indicator Tools of the Physical Environment: a Systematic Review.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2018Pooled it
- Article
- Social factors, health policy, and environment: implications for cardiovascular disease across the globe.European heart journal · 2025Review
- Stress reduction from landscape painting and live nature viewing: a comparative experimental study.Journal of global health · 2025Article
- Assessing the built environment through photographs and its association with obesity in 21 countries: the PURE Study.The Lancet. Global health · 2024Article
- Cultural Sets Shape Adult Conceptualizations and Relationships to Nature.Sustainability · 2021Article
- Exploring convolutional neural networks and spatial video for on-the-ground mapping in informal settlements.International journal of health geographics · 2021Article
- Small-Area Factors and Their Impact on Low Birth Weight-Results of a Birth Cohort Study in Bielefeld, Germany.Frontiers in public health · 2020Article
- Extending Data for Urban Health Decision-Making: a Menu of New and Potential Neighborhood-Level Health Determinants Datasets in LMICs.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2019Article
- Beyond Nutrient Intake: Use of Digital Food Photography Methodology to Examine Family Dinnertime.Journal of nutrition education and behavior · 2019Article
- A picture tells a thousand…exposures: Opportunities and challenges of deep learning image analyses in exposure science and environmental epidemiology.Environment international · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPrevious research has shown that environments with features that encourage walking are associated with increased physical activity. Existing methods to assess the built environment using geographical information systems (GIS) data, direct audit or large surveys of the residents face constraints, such as data availability and comparability, when used to study communities in countries in diverse parts of the world. The aim of this study was to develop a method to evaluate features of the built environment of communities using a standard set of photos. In this report we describe the method of photo collection, photo analysis instrument development and inter-rater reliability of the instrument. METHODS/PRINCIPAL
findingsA minimum of 5 photos were taken per community in 86 communities in 5 countries according to a standard set of instructions from a designated central point of each community by researchers at each site. A standard pro forma derived from reviewing existing instruments to assess the built environment was developed and used to score the characteristics of each community. Photo sets from each community were assessed independently by three observers in the central research office according to the pro forma and the inter-rater reliability was compared by intra-class correlation (ICC). Overall 87% (53 of 60) items had an ICC of ≥ 0.70, 7% (4 of 60) had an ICC between 0.60 and 0.70 and 5% (3 of 60) items had an ICC ≤ 0.50. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Analysis of photos using a standardized protocol as described in this study offers a means to obtain reliable and reproducible information on the built environment in communities in very diverse locations around the world. The collection of the photographic data required minimal training and the analysis demonstrated high reliability for the majority of items of interest.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.