SAI: Healthy and Equitable Public Spaces

加强美国基础设施(SAI)是一项NSF计划，旨在刺激以人类为中心的基础性研究和潜在的变革性研究，以加强美国的基础设施。有效的基础设施为社会经济活力和广泛的生活质量改善提供了坚实的基础。强大、可靠和有效的基础设施刺激私营部门创新，增长经济，创造就业机会，提高公共部门服务提供效率，加强社区力量，促进机会均等，保护自然环境，增强国家安全，推动美国的领导地位。要实现这些目标，需要来自科学和工程学科的专业知识。SAI侧重于人类推理和决策、治理以及社会和文化过程的知识如何能够建设和维护有效的基础设施，以改善生活和社会，并建立在技术和工程进步的基础上。这种全球范围内从农村生活向城市生活的转变很可能会继续下去。虽然城市化创造了支持人类健康和福祉的机会，但它也带来了严重的威胁。与郊区和农村环境相比，城市生活提供了更容易进入社会基础设施的途径--人们在公共空间进行社交互动和与社区互动。然而，与自然环境相比，暴露在城市环境中会导致较差的身心健康。理解这些差异的一个关键是要认识到，并不是所有的城市公共空间都是一样的。在城市和自然公共空间的质量以及这些公共空间提供的不同机会方面，城市内部存在着明显的差异。在社区合作伙伴的参与下，这个多学科项目使用在线、实验室和基于社区的数据收集，以了解公共空间对认知、情感和福祉的影响，并记录边缘化和非边缘化社区成员的生活经历。这个SAI研究项目通过确定促进恢复和福祉的公共空间的特征，并通过为健康和公平的公共空间提供基于证据的设计标准来加强美国的社会基础设施。该项目探索美国三个城市不同居民对公共空间的反应。该项目采用混合方法，使用调查和实验的定性指标和定量数据。定量评估包括生理反应数据、行为眼球跟踪和运动跟踪数据、自我报告数据和档案邻里级别数据。这些方法用于确定与心理恢复和福祉有关的公共空间的特征，并记录边缘化和非边缘化个人经历的相似和不同之处。调查结果定期与咨询委员会分享，咨询委员会由促进公共空间的各种组织的代表组成，包括文化机构、政策团体、教育倡议和社区团体。顾问的数据和专业知识被纳入到评估和设计更健康、更公平的公共空间的社会影响协议的制定中。该奖项得到了社会、行为和经济(SBE)科学局和工程局的支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Strengthening American Infrastructure (SAI) is an NSF Program seeking to stimulate human-centered fundamental and potentially transformative research that strengthens America’s infrastructure. Effective infrastructure provides a strong foundation for socioeconomic vitality and broad quality of life improvement. Strong, reliable, and effective infrastructure spurs private-sector innovation, grows the economy, creates jobs, makes public-sector service provision more efficient, strengthens communities, promotes equal opportunity, protects the natural environment, enhances national security, and fuels American leadership. To achieve these goals requires expertise from across the science and engineering disciplines. SAI focuses on how knowledge of human reasoning and decision-making, governance, and social and cultural processes enables the building and maintenance of effective infrastructure that improves lives and society and builds on advances in technology and engineering.More than half of the human population is concentrated in urban areas. This worldwide shift from rural to urban living is likely to continue. Although urbanization creates opportunities to support human health and well-being, it also introduces serious threats. Compared to suburban and rural environments, urban living provides easier access to social infrastructure – the public spaces where people interact socially and engage with the community. Yet, exposure to urban versus natural environments is associated with poorer physical and psychological well-being. One key to understanding these differences is to recognize that not all urban public spaces are created the same. Stark differences exist within cities in the qualities of urban and natural public spaces, and the different opportunities that these public spaces provide. With the input of community partners, this multidisciplinary project uses online, laboratory, and community-based data collection to understand the impact of public spaces on cognition, emotion, and well-being, and to document the lived experiences of marginalized and non-marginalized community members. This SAI research project strengthens America’s social infrastructure by identifying features of public spaces that promote restoration and well-being, and by providing evidence-based design standards for healthy and equitable public spaces.This project explores responses to public spaces among diverse residents in three U.S. cities. The project leverages a mixed-methods approach, using qualitative indicators and quantitative data from surveys and experiments. The quantitative assessments include physiological reactivity data, behavioral eye tracking and motion tracking data, self-report data, and archival neighborhood-level data. These methods are used to identify features of public spaces that are associated with psychological restoration and well-being, and to document similarities and differences in the experiences of marginalized and non-marginalized individuals. Findings are regularly shared with an advisory board with representation from a variety of organizations that promote public spaces, including cultural institutions, policy groups, educational initiatives and community groups. The data and the expertise of advisors are incorporated into the development of a social impact protocol for assessing and designing healthier and more equitable public spaces.This award is supported by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences and the Directorate for Engineering.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.