[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Newbold_Bruce.jpg” caption=”Bruce Newbold”]Location, location, location. The old real estate adage takes on a new meaning when it comes to Bruce Newbold's research.

Newbold, an associate professor of geography and the director of McMaster's Institute for Environment and Health (MIEH), has plenty to say about the importance of location, but his take on the neighbourhoods we live in might surprise you.

In tonight's (Feb.14) free Science in the City public lecture, Healthy Hamilton? Checking up on the City's Health, Newbold discusses the research that reveals the neighbourhood where you live plays a key role in determining how healthy you are.

A team of MIEH researchers surveyed some 1500 residents from four Hamilton neighbourhoods: downtown, the northeast industrial area, the Chedoke/Aberdeen area in West Hamilton and one Mountain neighbourhood.

They conducted phone interviews, asking people for their perception of their neighbourhood — everything from how they felt about their safety, pollution, what they thought of their local schools — to how they felt about their neighbourhood's appearance. He then asked respondents to rate their own physical and mental health.

Those people living in lower income areas, where they perceived they had little or no social capital, self-assessed with chronic mental and physical health problems.

“We often think of health as being just a doctor and where the hospital is,” Newbold says in an interview with The Hamilton Spectator, “hopefully, they'll see that health is much bigger than that. It is a social and a physical and a neighbourhood component and it can be locally determined. It's not just what the federal government or provincial government gives us.”

For tonight's lecture, Newbold will present an overview of on-going research that seeks to understand how health is altered by the physical and social environments in Hamilton. He will also talk about how health resources may be inequitably distributed across the city, particularly for the immigrant population, and the implications for health.

The lecture is free and all are welcome. To reserve your seat, e-mail sciencecity@mcmaster.ca or by phone, 905-525-9140, ext. 24934. The talk begins at 7 p.m. in the Hamilton Specator Auditorium, 44 Frid Street(doors open at 6:30 p.m.).