TY - JOUR
T1 - Spatial Polygamy and Contextual Exposures (SPACEs)
T2 - Promoting Activity Space Approaches in Research on Place And Health
AU - Matthews, Stephen A.
AU - Yang, Tse Chuan
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support has been provided to the authors by the Population Research Institute at Penn State which receives core funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Award R24-HD41025.
PY - 2013/8
Y1 - 2013/8
N2 - Exposure science has developed rapidly and there is an increasing call for greater precision in the measurement of individual exposures across space and time. Social science interest in an individual's environmental exposure, broadly conceived, has arguably been quite limited conceptually and methodologically. Indeed, in social science, we appear to lag behind our exposure science colleagues in our theories, data, and methods. In this article, we discuss a framework based on the concept of spatial polygamy to demonstrate the need to collect new forms of data on human spatial behavior and contextual exposures across time and space. Adopting new data and methods will be essential if one wants to better understand social inequality in terms of exposure to health risks and access to health resources. We discuss the opportunities and challenges focusing on the potential seemingly offered by focusing on human mobility and, specifically, the utilization of activity space concepts and data. A goal of the article is to spatialize social and health science concepts and research practice vis-à-vis the complexity of exposure. The article concludes with some recommendations for future research, focusing on theoretical and conceptual development promoting research on new types of places and human movement, the dynamic nature of contexts, and training.
AB - Exposure science has developed rapidly and there is an increasing call for greater precision in the measurement of individual exposures across space and time. Social science interest in an individual's environmental exposure, broadly conceived, has arguably been quite limited conceptually and methodologically. Indeed, in social science, we appear to lag behind our exposure science colleagues in our theories, data, and methods. In this article, we discuss a framework based on the concept of spatial polygamy to demonstrate the need to collect new forms of data on human spatial behavior and contextual exposures across time and space. Adopting new data and methods will be essential if one wants to better understand social inequality in terms of exposure to health risks and access to health resources. We discuss the opportunities and challenges focusing on the potential seemingly offered by focusing on human mobility and, specifically, the utilization of activity space concepts and data. A goal of the article is to spatialize social and health science concepts and research practice vis-à-vis the complexity of exposure. The article concludes with some recommendations for future research, focusing on theoretical and conceptual development promoting research on new types of places and human movement, the dynamic nature of contexts, and training.
KW - SPACEs
KW - contextual exposures
KW - health
KW - place
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U2 - 10.1177/0002764213487345
DO - 10.1177/0002764213487345
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84880161775
SN - 0002-7642
VL - 57
SP - 1057
EP - 1081
JO - American Behavioral Scientist
JF - American Behavioral Scientist
IS - 8
ER -