Dr. Aaron Hipp

Aaron Hipp (NCSU)

Link to CV.

Title: Spatial Energetics

To address current obesity and inactivity epidemics, researchers have attempted to identify spatial factors that influence health behaviors. Technological and methodological developments have led to a revolutionary ability to examine dynamic, high-resolution measures of temporally-matched location and behavior data through Global Positioning Systems (GPS), accelerometry, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). These advances allow the investigation of ‘spatial energetics,’ high spatio-temporal resolution data on location and time-matched physical activity, inactivity, and nutrition behavior, to examine how environmental characteristics, space, and time are linked to health behaviors with far more robust and detailed data than in previous work. While the transdisciplinary field of spatial energetics demonstrates promise to provide novel insights on how individuals and populations interact with their environment, there remain significant conceptual, technical, analytical, and ethical challenges stemming from the complex data streams that spatial energetics research generates.