Research Areas: GIS, Geospatial Data Analytics, Environmental Health, Air Pollution Exposure, Environmental Justice, Health Disparities, Health & Medical Geography, and Low-Cost Air Sensors
GeoHealth Lab seeks to understand environmental health (particularly exposure to air pollution), environmental justice, and health disparities using GIS, geospatial technologies, and spatial statistical methods.
The core concept within this broad range of topics is human mobility. Noting that people move around over space and time, GeoHealth lab goes beyond residence-based static approaches and utilizes fine-grained spatiotemporal methods and travel pattern data (e.g., GPS tracking data, travel-activity diaries, and data collected from low-cost sensors) to untangle the complexities of the social/environmental impacts on health and health disparities. Incorporating human mobility into environmental health research is important because it enables the examination of a full spectrum of geographic and temporal contexts in which people interact with environmental/social factors.
Personal exposure to air pollution
Park, Y.M. & Kwan, M.-P. (2017). Individual Exposure Estimates May Be Erroneous When Spatiotemporal Variability of Air Pollution and Human Mobility Are Ignored. Health & Place, 43, 85-94.
Multi-contextual segregation
Park, Y.M. & Kwan, M.-P. (2018). Beyond Residential Segregation: A Spatiotemporal Approach to Examining Multi-Contextual Segregation. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 71, 98-108.
Environmental justice and segregation
Park, Y.M. & Kwan, M.-P. (2017). Multi-Contextual Segregation and Environmental Justice Research: Toward Fine-Scale Spatiotemporal Approaches. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(10), 1205.
Spatial multilevel models
Park, Y.M. & Kim, Y. (2014). A Spatially Filtered Multilevel Model to Account for Spatial Dependency: Application to Self-Rated Health Status in South Korea. International Journal of Health Geographics, 13:6.
Disparities in near-roadway exposure
Park, Y.M. & Kwan, M.-P. (2020). Understanding Racial Disparities in Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution: Considering Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Population Distribution. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 17(3), 90
Traffic-related air pollution
Park, Y.M. (2020). Assessing Personal Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution Using Individual Travel-Activity Diary Data and an On-Road Source Air Dispersion Model. Health & Place, 63: 102351.