LATEBREAKER
Environment/Climate Change
Tree canopy, socioeconomic status, and cardiovascular disease in Durham County, North Carolina: A descriptive study using census tracts Sophie Ravanbakht* Sophie Ravanbakht Emily D’agostino Christine Gray
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the U.S., and the prevalence of diseases and related comorbidities such as stroke and high blood pressure are especially high in the American South. Disparities in access to care and community amenities make poor outcomes sharper in communities of color and lower-income communities. Climate change is increasingly understood to be exacerbating both poor CVD outcomes, and CVD disparities. Land features such as tree canopy may help protect against poor CVD outcomes. The Durham Neighborhood Compass (DNC) is a community resource designed to democratize data and enable local community assessment. We linked census tract data on tree canopy coverage (TCC) in 2016 and race/ethnicity and median income in 2021 from the DNC to census tract prevalence of stroke and high blood pressure from the CDC’s 500 cities 2022 data. Our goal was to explore CVD, race/ethnicity, and income as related to TCC in Durham, North Carolina. We defined high TCC as >=43% and low TCC as <43% based on a natural threshold in the distribution across tracts. Mean race/ethnicity population in tracts with high TCC was 46% White, 12% Hispanic, and 31% Black, and in tracts with low TCC was 37% White, 17% Hispanic, and 41% Black. We found median income in high TCC tracts was $73,772 and in low TCC tracts was $49,570. These preliminary results suggest no difference in CVD among high vs low TCC; however, tracts with higher percentage minoritized populations and lower income have much lower TCC. As more data are available, future analyses should consider more granular levels of geography, change over time, and modification by race/ethnicity and income.