Neighborhood effects research focuses on the residential neighborhood, assuming it as the main spatial context relevant to individual outcomes. Individuals, however, are mobile and visit various spatial contexts other than the residential neighborhoods. This article conceptualizes contextual exposures to socioenvironmental factors in daily activity spaces and their relationship with residential exposures. By introducing regression toward the mean, we argue that mobility-based contextual exposures are, on average, less extreme than residential exposures. Previous neighborhood effects studies therefore tend to underestimate actual spatial contextual effects when they misrepresent residential neighborhood effects as the total contextual effects. Despite improved measurement accuracy with the transition from residence- to mobility-based exposures, we suggest the complexities remaining in the estimation of spatial contextual effects from a geographic perspective. These complexities include a possibly limited extent of neighborhood effects regression across neighborhoods and asymmetrical dispersion of between-individual contextual exposures within each neighborhood.

Air pollution and noise are both ubiquitous environmental stressors that pose great threats to public health. Emerging evidence has noticed the combined health risks caused by the coexistence of traffic-related air pollutants and noise in the residential context. However, less is known about how mobile individuals are simultaneously exposed to multiple sources of air pollution and noise, and thus respond with more acute psychological responses beyond the residence. This study examines the co-exposures to fine particles (PM_2.5) and noise across spatiotemporal contexts where the concurrent exposures are jointly associated with momentary psychological stress. An innovative research protocol, including GPS-equipped activity-travel diaries, air pollutant and noise sensors, and ecological momentary assessment, was adopted to collect real-time data from a sample of residents in Beijing, China. The results showed a minor correlation between PM_2.5 and noise exposures after accounting for individual mobility and the spatiotemporal dynamics of these two environmental pollutants. Further, exposure to PM_2.5 was more associated with momentary psychological stress given the insignificant independent effect and the weak moderating effect of noise exposure. Three specific spatiotemporal contexts involving the health risks of co-exposures were delineated, including morning rush hours and traveling by public transits with intensified stress risks caused by combined exposures to air pollution and noise, workplaces with counteracting stress effect of both exposures, and evening time at home with stress-induced air pollution and stress-relieving social noise. In conclusion, the mobility-based and context-aware analysis provides a more nuanced understanding of the associations of co-exposures to environmental pollution and synchronous psychological stress in space and time.

Environmental justice is a crucial environmental and social problem. Previous research in the cities of developed countries has found that ethnic minorities and low-income people were disproportionately exposed to the residential environment with more serious environmental risks. This study proposed a transition from the residence-based perspective to a mobility-based and context-aware approach to reinterpret environmental justice with a focus on the air pollution issue in urban China. A novel research protocol combining geographic ecological momentary assessment and portable air pollutant sensors was developed to collect and analyze real-time data of air pollution exposure and psychological stress for residents living in the same residential neighborhood of Beijing, China. The results show that residents of different types of housing were exposed to varying PM_2.5 concentrations although they experienced similar levels of air pollution in their residential neighborhoods. Residents of public low-rent housing were the disadvantaged group because of their limited mobility, exposure to serious air pollution at home, and insensitive stress responses to air pollution. These findings not only uncover the mobility-based environmental justice issue in the context of government-led and egalitarianism-pursuing urban China, but also provide references for the residential mix policy on how to narrow the disparity in environmental pollution exposure from the perspective of human mobility.