Measuring the quality of public open space using Google Earth: a commentary.

摘要

Collecting detailed observational measures of built environment characteristics that may affect physical activity behavior is a challenge faced by communities, practitioners, and researchers. Research presented by Taylor et al. in this issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine adds to an emerging literature on new methods for measuring built environment characteristics that support public health research. The authors evaluate a new approach for inventorying amenities and rating the overall quality of 50 public open spaces in Sydney, Australia, using Street View imagery and aerial photography available in Google Earth. Image-based interpretations are then compared to independent field-based measures of the same environments to examine agreement between the two approaches.