Measuring Quality of Life in Communities Surrounding Airports (2020)

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1 Airports exist to facilitate the safe movement of people and goods while making every effort to do so in a way that minimizes the negative impacts and maximizes the benefits to their surrounding communities. Many airports seek to understand their impacts on neighboring towns, cities, and regions through economic impact analyses, employment studies, and envi ronmental studies, such as those that focus on sustainability efforts or noise. However, there is an emerging need for airports to take a more holistic look at how they affect their neighbors and how they can build stronger community relationships. Airports would also benefit from a more compre hensive understanding of the variables affecting their surrounding communities, over which they may have little to no control. For these reasons—among others identified in this guidebook—airports should consider measuring comprehen­ sive quality of life (QOL) in their surrounding communities. QOL is a broad, multidimensional concept that refers to an individual’s or a community’s perception of and actual well­ being and position in life. It often encompasses variables in health, economics, psychological, social, and other categories. Gaining a better understanding of QOL in communities surrounding airports will allow airports to identify challenges and concerns, as well as understand how they can create opportunities to address existing or emerging challenges. This guidebook provides airports and their communities with the information and tools necessary to understand QOL and how it can be measured in communities surrounding airports. The guidebook provides the process and steps an airport can take to develop its own QOL assessment. While the methodology described in this guidebook is intended to be flexible and customizable to reflect the needs of individual airports, it contains information, tips, and a tiered approach to developing a QOL assessment, including suggestions for determining the study area, the scope of the assessment, and how to score and interpret the results. Background informa­ tion on similar QOL studies and details of how the Quality of Life Assessment Methodology was developed, in addition to related tools, are available in the appendices to the guidebook. Guidebook Audience This guidebook is intended for use by airports of all sizes and types with varying levels of resource availability that are interested in gaining an understanding of QOL of their S U M M A R Y Measuring Quality of Life in Communities Surrounding Airports Quality of life is a broad, multidimensional concept that refers to an individual’s or a community’s perception of and actual well-being and position in life. It encompasses many categories of variables, including health, economics, environmental, psychological, and social factors. WHAT IS QUALITY OF LIFE?

2 Measuring Quality of Life in Communities Surrounding Airports surrounding communities. The guidebook provides direction for conducting a QOL assessment via a tiered approach through which airports and communities accrue benefits from each sequential step. For example, completing the first step of the assessment process will spur internal conversations within the airport about QOL and encourage airport staff to think more broadly about how airport decisions affect surrounding communities. As resources allow, the airport can continue to build on prior steps and work towards developing a full­scale QOL assessment. The target audience for this guidebook includes • Airport administrators, executives, and decision makers. The guidebook provides information necessary to understand the QOL concept and identify how an airport can use a QOL assessment to consider its influence on communities beyond routinely reported impacts (e.g., economic and environmental). It provides discussion of how a QOL assessment can support the broader goals of an airport and its surrounding communities while building trust between the airport and external stakeholders. • Airport technical staff, including planners and environmental, sustainability, and operations personnel. Although airport departments often collaborate, they may also operate in silos as their purpose and goals differ. When operating in silos, there may be a lack of awareness about how the decisions of one department may conflict with the goals of another at some airports. In these cases, a decision made by one department may have less than desirable impacts on the community, and a negative reaction from the community may come as a surprise to other departments. In some cases, negative impacts can be avoided or minimized through improved coordination among internal departments. This guidebook provides the tools necessary to facilitate improved inter­ departmental dialogue on issues that affect the surrounding community. • Airport communications, public relations, and government–external affairs personnel. Airport professionals with responsibilities in the communications, public relations, or government–external affairs realms have frequent interactions with individuals and groups affected by airport activities, including the public, passengers, airport tenants, local governments, and elected officials. These airport personnel drive the narrative concerning airport decisions and plans. They may regularly receive and respond to positive and negative feedback from the public. These personnel are integral to any QOL assessment effort an airport chooses to pursue, as they can assist in identifying the critical stakeholders to involve, defining the study area, and communicating the QOL assessment results. Obtaining a more holistic understanding of QOL will enable these professionals to better communicate with airport stakeholders. • Municipal governments and agencies (e.g., elected officials, planning departments, and economic development agencies). Many airports are owned and operated by a city government or an airport authority that closely coordinates with local governments. In some cases, airport authority members are appointed by elected officials. Local governments have an interest in understanding the factors that affect the prosperity, health, and welfare of their citizens for planning purposes and to allocate resources properly to meet long­term goals. Airports are critical components of local economies and regional transportation networks. Not only do they provide local jobs, but they also serve to attract business and tourists to a region. Local governments would benefit from a better understanding of how their local airport(s) may affect QOL and what factors are not affected by the airport. This may allow them to better predict any possible conflicts or controversies before they arise or to help resolve conflicts that do arise. • Community organizations, educational institutions, business community, and tourism boards. Large employers—such as universities, hospitals, and businesses, in addition to other local organizations—have a vested interest in the economic, social, and environmental well­being of the community and its residents (including students, employees, and customers). These organizations may depend on their local airports for

Summary 3 transporting employees, moving cargo and products, drawing regional tourism, and more. But they may not have a clear understanding of how the airports’ decisions could affect their organization and stakeholders or where there may be synergistic opportunities for mutual benefit. The Quality of Life Assessment Methodology provides a means by which these organizations can engage in discussions with the airport to exchange infor­ mation and identify one another’s chief concerns, collective challenges, and goals. These discussions provide a means for information and data sharing between parties that are necessary for completing components of the QOL assessment. Inclusivity is critical to the success of a QOL assessment and requires the involvement of external organizations and community stakeholders to provide a range of important perspectives. • Residents of communities near airports. Communities near airports are affected by airport operations in positive and negative ways. For example, living near an airport provides quick access for business and personal travel and allows for proximity to job opportunities at the airport. Conversely, living near an airport may correlate with greater exposure to aircraft noise or increased roadway traffic, which can negatively impact an individual’s or community’s QOL. If community residents feel that they are bearing a disproportionate burden of the costs of airport operations, the benefits may be obscured by one or two specific impacts. Dialogue between the community and the airport will benefit from consideration of additional elements of QOL. Completion of any assessment process steps will, hopefully, lead to more balanced and holistic perspectives on how local airports affect community QOL. Organization of the Guidebook This guidebook is organized into six chapters, a references and bibliography list, an acronyms list, and seven appendices: Chapter 1. The first chapter provides an overview of the QOL concept, the research approach, the objective of the project, and the rationale for undertaking a QOL assessment at an airport. Chapter 2. Chapter 2 provides an overview and explanation of the Quality of Life Assess­ ment Methodology, including a description of the quantitative and qualitative indicators, the QOL scoring mechanism, and the process of importance weighting. Additional details on the methodology are provided in Appendix C: Existing Quality of Life Resources. Chapter 3. This chapter provides step­by­step instructions for developing a QOL assessment using a tiered approach in which airports can gain value from each sequential step. Chapter 4. Chapter 4 provides detail on how airports can collect data on both quantitative and qualitative indicators as part of the Quality of Life Assessment Methodology. Chapter 5. This chapter provides information necessary for analyzing the collected QOL data, along with recommendations for visualizing the data and communicating results. Chapter 6. The conclusion includes a summary of recommendations for further related research. References and Bibliography. This section consists of a list of the sources used to support the data provided in the guidebook. Acronyms. This section lists the definitions of acronyms used throughout the guidebook. Appendix A. Appendix A contains the Quality of Life Assessment Survey Tool. The survey contains participant instructions, all qualitative indicators and importance weighting questions, quantitative indicators and importance weighting questions, and optional demographic questions. The survey is provided as a separate, downloadable Word docu­ ment so that airports can more easily input the survey questions into their preferred survey administration tool, if desired. The Quality of Life Assessment Survey Tool can be found at www.trb.org by searching for “ACRP Research Report 221.”

4 Measuring Quality of Life in Communities Surrounding Airports Appendix B. Appendix B is a stand­alone, downloadable Excel file containing a list of all QOL indicators, including thresholds and data sources for the quantitative indicators. It also includes instructions for obtaining information related to quantitative indicators. Indicator Thresholds and Quantitative Data Sources can be found at www.trb.org by searching for “ACRP Research Report 221.” Appendix C. This appendix provides an overview of selected QOL studies and research, some of which provided or influenced the selection of indicators and methodology included in this guidebook. It is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all literature related to QOL, but rather a snapshot of some relevant resources to further acquaint the guidebook user with the topic and how other QOL studies have influenced the material in this guidebook. Appendix D. Additional information explaining the Quality of Life Assessment Methodology and motivation for the research team’s approach is included in Appendix D. Appendix E. Summaries of the three partner airport workshops are included in Appendix E. The workshops were conducted with airport and community stakeholders to validate the Quality of Life Assessment Methodology. Appendix F. Appendix F is a stand­alone, downloadable PowerPoint file that serves as a basic introduction to QOL concepts and the Quality of Life Assessment Methodology itself. Airports can customize these slides to support both internal discussions with airport stakeholders and external discussions with community organizations. The Sample Quality of Life Assessment Introduction PowerPoint can be found at www.trb.org by searching for “ACRP Research Report 221.” Appendix G. This appendix presents options for visualizing and presenting data collected as part of a QOL assessment to facilitate interpretation and analysis of results for decision­ making purposes.