Mission


Mission, Scope, & Objectives

Mission


To expand and improve current understanding and evaluation of transportation as a social determinant of health by identifying, advancing and publishing research and information, and by identifying successful techniques of collaboration between the transportation and public health communities.


Scope


Includes a wide array of topics designed to cover diverse impacts and issues related to health, health disparities and health equity. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: sustainable and active transportation modes; mobility; accessibility; reducing road dangers, injuries and deaths; freight and aviation impacts to health; environmental exposures; social cohesion; other social, physical and mental health impacts; the distribution of those health impacts in the population particularly on vulnerable populations; and, the use of health impact assessments and other metrics and indicators to advance the consideration of health impacts and health equity in transportation decision-making.

The committee will also consider approaches to maximize health benefits while addressing potential adverse impacts of transportation planning and policy decisions through engineering and design solutions.

 Objectives



Editorial Manager Topics

History of the Committee

In January 2020, TRB approved a new committee structure that created AME70, a new standing committee on health. This was welcome news for the joint Subcommittee on Health and Transportation, which formed in March 2012. 

Since its inception in 2012, the Health and Transportation Subcommittee was highly productive. Actually, it functioned more like a standing committee and sponsored paper calls, submitted research proposals, reviewed papers, organized and conducted sessions and workshops, and took on special initiatives.

To understand what makes a health committee in TRB unique, consider the situation in which the subcommittee was formed. Starting around 2005, TRB staff began to see annual meeting paper submissions with health-related topics but without a corresponding committee capable of leading the reviews. Behind the scenes, TRB staff established a group of three committee chairs to lead a team of reviewers that served as an ad-hoc review team. This is an example of how the the transportation community recognized that health was emerging as topic that should be considered within the framework of TRB.