Date of Award

9-20-2024

Publication Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.Sc.

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Keywords

Asset Management;Bayesian Belief Network;Infrastructure;Machine Learning;Nexus;Public Health

Supervisor

Rajeev Ruparathna

Supervisor

Mohamed Belalia

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Infrastructure systems are a crucial component of North American communities, supporting quality of life, providing basic necessities, and allowing for social development, and economic growth. According to the UN, 55% of the world population, or roughly 4.3 billion people, live in urban areas worldwide, with an anticipated increase as rural populations continue to move into urbanized areas. With increasing urbanized populations comes increasing healthcare expenditures for municipalities. In 2022, the healthcare expenditure per Canadian was up to $8,563 dollars, or roughly $331 billion dollars total. Literature suggests there is a close link between built municipal infrastructure, and the health of the community. This study aims to examine and expand upon the correlation between municipal infrastructure and community health, using a combination of Bayesian Belief Networks and Machine Learning Approaches. The findings are then used to determine which infrastructure systems have the greatest impact on community health. These findings give insight into how to improve community health through infrastructure. The machine learning model is able to accurately predict health indices for cities, making it a valuable tool for predicting health indices in Canada. Based on the findings, infrastructure has an impact on the health and wellbeing of the community. Relationships were found between community health and air quality, drinking water quality, the amount of greenspace and parks, the amount of walking or biking paths, and the number of recreational facilities. This provides insight into which municipal infrastructure assets provide the greatest health benefits to community members.

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