The PhenX Toolkit: Measurement Protocols for Assessment of Social Determinants of Health.

INTRODUCTION: Social determinants are structures and conditions in the biological, physical, built, and social environments that affect health, social and physical functioning, health risk, quality of life, and health outcomes. The adoption of recommended, standard measurement protocols for social determinants of health will advance the science of minority health and health disparities research and provide standard social determinants of health protocols for inclusion in all studies with human participants. METHODS: A PhenX (consensus measures for Phenotypes and eXposures) Working Group of social determinants of health experts was convened from October 2018 to May 2020 and followed a well-established consensus process to identify and recommend social determinants of health measurement protocols. The PhenX Toolkit contains data collection protocols suitable for inclusion in a wide range of research studies. The recommended social determinants of health protocols were shared with the broader scientific community to invite review and feedback before being added to the Toolkit. RESULTS: Nineteen social determinants of health protocols were released in the PhenX Toolkit (https://www.phenxtoolkit.org) in May 2020 to provide measures at the individual and structural levels for built and natural environments, structural racism, economic resources, employment status, occupational health and safety, education, environmental exposures, food environment, health and health care, and sociocultural community context. CONCLUSIONS: Promoting the adoption of well-established social determinants of health protocols can enable consistent data collection and facilitate comparing and combining studies, with the potential to increase their scientific impact.

Generative Models of Segregation: Investigating Model-Generated Patterns of Residential Segregation by Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status.

This paper considers the potential for using agent models to explore theories of residential segregation in urban areas. Results of generative experiments conducted using an agent-based simulation of segregation dynamics document that varying a small number of model parameters representing constructs from urban-ecological theories of segregation can generate a wide range of qualitatively distinct and substantively interesting segregation patterns. The results suggest how complex, macro-level patterns of residential segregation can arise from a small set of simple micro-level social dynamics operating within particular urban-demographic contexts. The promise and current limitations of agent simulation studies are noted and optimism is expressed regarding the potential for such studies to engage and contribute to the broader research literature on residential segregation.

Understanding the social context of the Schelling segregation model.

A recent article [Vinkovic D, Kirman A (2006) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103:19261-19265] showing that the Schelling model has a physical analogue extends our understanding of the model. However, prior research has already outlined a mathematical basis for the Schelling model and simulations based on it have already enhanced our understanding of the social dynamics that underlie the model, something that the physical analogue does not address. Research in social science has provided a formal basis for the segregative outcomes resulting from the residential selection process and simulations have replicated relevant spatial outcomes under different specifications of the residential dynamics. New and increasingly detailed survey data on preferences demonstrates the embeddedness of the Schelling selection process in the social behaviors of choosing alternative residential compositions. It also demonstrates that, in the multicultural context, seemingly mild preferences for living with similar neighbors carry the potential to be strong determinants for own race selectivity and residential segregation.