Study to focus on environment's impact on the workplace

UB Professor Samina Raja, Ph.D. has been awarded $105,000 by the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC) to study the effect of infrastructure improvements on employees' physical activity.

Studying the effect of workplace environment on employee activity, Raja expects to see a significant impact on health and productivity.

"If you have sidewalks in a neighborhood, people are more likely to walk than if you have no sidewalks," Raja said. "There are elements in our environment that affect our ability to be physically active. I felt to really get at how the environment affects health you need to connect the dots."

In the next several weeks, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus will undergo a considerable redesign. Changes will include the addition of public art and lighting fixtures, as well as major improvements to the streetscape.

The facility is predominantly outdoors and home to approximately 6,000 employees, whom Raja will survey before and after changes take place.

"The designers and architects have been told to promote physical health and wellness," Raja said. "The proposal initially spoke of the outdoors, but it will be important to consider the indoors... (such as) how many floors there are, (and) are there elevators or staircases?"

The project will use a series of surveys as primary measurement of physical activity.

"Survey is one of the elements, but I also have a sub-study where employees will wear accelerometers to measure their activeness and physical activity," she said, adding accelerometers would help her to understand "where in the building people are more likely to be active."

The BNMC has also made efforts to improve employee physical health through programs such as Walk on Wednesdays, or WOW, which encourages walking tours on campus.

The implementation of the project in other locations may be useful as well, Raja said. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has performed similar studies on a much larger scale, and has combined her research with their findings.

Raja has been active in the field health-related studies for years. Her most recent study was conducted in collaboration with a number of other UB professors. It focused on the influence of constructed environments on youth obesity. She is also performing research on fiscal impacts, specifically on the impact of intergovernmental transfers on New York counties.