Active Transportation Resource Center Logo

Advancing Health Equity Through Active Transportation

Two people carrying grocery bags with a dog crossing a street in a crosswalk

By the California Department of Public Health ATRC Team

Research shows that a lack of transportation access is a serious barrier that puts people’s health at risk. Data from the CDC (Ng et al., 2024) indicates that roughly 15 million adults struggle to find reliable transportation for daily needs such as getting to work or the grocery store. Health is impacted by how easily we can move through our neighborhoods. Since mobility options vary across different regions and neighborhoods, benefits and harms are not evenly distributed. The legacy of underinvestment and disinvestment has left many parts of the state without safe, accessible, and equitable travel routes, including options for walking, biking, and accessing public transit, leaving those without access to a car at a major disadvantage. The harms of these transportation gaps manifest in a myriad of ways, such as impeding people’s ability to access medical care. Each year, 5.8 million Americans skip or delay a doctor’s visit due to a lack of transportation (Wolfe et al., 2020), which can cause manageable conditions to worsen over time, requiring more complex and costly interventions later. These are matters of health equity: the state in which every person has a fair and just opportunity to attain their best health (CDC, 2024).

To address these disparities, national authorities, including the Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF), supported by the CDC, and the U.S. Department of Transportation, recommend infrastructure improvements, specifically those that enable people to use safe pedestrian facilities or connect to public transit through active transport. The CPSTF also highlights mixed land use as a key strategy to increase the diversity of local destinations, bringing essential services closer to home. The California Department of Public Health also includes increasing the number of municipalities that have adopted local policies, ordinances, engineering solutions, or other strategies that promote safe, walkable, and bikeable communities, particularly in low-income, underserved communities, in the State’s Wellness Plan. By aligning infrastructure with land use patterns through cross-disciplinary collaboration, we can ensure that every resident has a reliable way to access essential services and lead a healthier life, regardless of their location, income level, or vehicle ownership status.

Sources: