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Sarah Hinde
BSc, GDPH ANU
Current Position: PhD Student
Contact Details:
National Centre for Epidemiology
& Population Health
Canberra ACT 0200 Australia
W:
http://nceph.anu.edu.au
E: sarah.hinde@anu.edu.au
Based at:
School of Anthropology, Geography
& Environmental Studies
The University of Melbourne
221 Bouverie Street
Parkville VIC 3010 Australia
T: 61 3 8344 9317
F: 61 3 9349 4218
M: 0417 405 715
E: shinde@unimelb.edu.au
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PhD Title
The health consequences of Australia's car cultures
Supervisors
Research Interests
The population health effects of car-reliance are relatively well documented but little attention has been paid to the importance of car-reliance for health for social groups. In the research that has been done on the relationship between cars and health for individuals, it appears that car ownership is sometimes correlated with better health. Thus emerges a paradox: generally speaking, car ownership can be protective for health at the individual level and detrimental to health at the population level.
Perhaps the correlation is spurious? Or, it may reflect the deprivation that is conferred by lack of access to the car (rather than a specific advantage conferred by the car), a function of a society designed to accommodate the automobile? Whilst there are numerous researchers who argue that the car offers no more benefits than an adequate public transport system would, there are also plenty of researchers–and others–who argue that there is something beneficial (perhaps even intrinsically ‘human’) about Australian society’s choice of car transport over other modes.
The research to date strongly suggests that the continued dominance of the motor vehicle will have massive negative consequences for the world’s population, now and into the future. Car-reliance appears to be unsustainable, demanding excess resources and causing environmental damage, inequities in mobility and ill-health impacts. Environmentalists, epidemiologists, urban planners, geographers, sociologists and more recently public health researchers, governments and international bodies have declared the need for our societies to move away from car-reliance. It is therefore an important issue for those concerned with population health.
There appears to be a very clear-cut rationale for treating car-reliance as a major population health problem to be resisted and avoided. However, whilst future generations will likely be saved from some of the devastating impacts of climate change, resource use etc, what will be the effect of reducing car-reliance on health and health inequalities in the near future (and the flow-on, life-course and intergenerational effects thereof)? There is little research upon which to assess how a transition away from the motor vehicle would affect lifestyles, health practices and health and well-being for social groups in the current and next generation.
My PhD study aims to understand the different ways in which car reliance is a determinant of health.
An essential part of answering this question is to provide an analysis of the role of the car in the daily life of different social groups. The sociology of lifestyle offers an appropriate theoretical approach to answer this question and I will apply a cultural economy perspective, particularly drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu. My fieldwork will consist of in-depth interviews with residents of two central Melbourne suburbs (one highly 'car-dominant', and one of the least 'car-dominant') and a local cultural economy analysis of car reliance.
Recent Publications
Dixon J, Banwell C, Hinde S, McIntyre H. (in press). Car-centred diets, social distinction and cultural mobility: food system research directions. XI World Congress of Rural Sociology, Trondheim, Norway.
Kjellstrom T, Hinde S. (in press). Car culture, transport policy and public health. In KawachiI, Wamala S (eds) Globalization and Health. New York, Oxford University Press.
Banwell C, Dixon J, Hinde S, Sibthorpe B.(in press). Reflections on expert consensus: a case study of the social trends contributing to obesity. European Journal of Public Health..
Banwell C, Hinde S, Dixon J, McIntyre H. (in press). Fast and slow food in the fast lane: Automobility and the Australian Diet. Society for Economic Anthropology 24.
Hinde S, Dixon J. Changing the "obesogenic environment": insights from a cultural economy of car-reliance. Transportation Research Part D - Transport and Environment. 2005; 10(1): 31-53.
Dixon J, Hinde S. Obesity prevention in a car-reliant society. Presented at Home Economics Institute of Australia Annual Conference, Hobart, Tasmania2005.
Hinde S. Australia’s love of the automobile: is it good for our health? A Conservation Council of the South East Region and Canberra Save the Ridge Forum, ACT Legislative Assembly Reception Room. Hosted by Deb Foskey, MLA. 12 September, 2005.
Hinde S. Australia’s cultures of car reliance: what are the health consequences? Presentation to Institute of Health Research, Lancaster University. 3 March, 2005.
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