Grant: Project Grant

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and disability in Canada. To date, the majority of the proposed solutions for reducing the burden of CVD in Canada focus on "individualized" interventions aimed at changing behaviours, like becoming more active or quitting smoking. Population-level interventions, that nudge large segments of the population towards healthy lifestyle, like banning indoor smoking for example, have shown promise in other countries, but have been understudied as solutions for reducing the burden of CVD in Canada. The main objective of this study is to determine if the expansion of an urban trail network reduces CVD events in the neighbourhoods where they are built. Urban trails are tracks of land, dedicated for walking and cycling that are separate from roads and traffic. Between 2010 and 2012 Winnipeg expanded the number of urban trails by ~110km, affecting some 50 neighbourhoods. We plan to compare changes in rates of heart attacks, high blood pressure and diabetes between neighbourhoods that received a new trail to those that did not.