Your browser doesn't support javascript.
loading
Show: 20 | 50 | 100
Results 1 - 20 de 59
Filter
1.
J Youth Adolesc ; 2024 Jul 18.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-39023841

ABSTRACT

Early exposure to socioeconomic distress is hypothesized to reinforce decision making that prioritizes immediate, relative to delayed, rewards (i.e., delay discounting); yet these relations have not been examined longitudinal across the vulnerable adolescent period. This study is one of the first to utilize objective and subjective measures to evaluate the relative effects of environmental disadvantage and the potential protective effects of perceived environmental support on delay discounting. A diverse (48.4% White; 46.7% female) sample of participants (N = 246) reported on their home addresses at baseline when they were, on average, 11.96 years old (SDage = 0.88); Youth then reported perceived environmental supports at baseline and delay discounting annually from ages 13 to 18. A socioeconomic distress index was derived from census tract rates of unemployment, income, educational attainment, and lone parenthood. Greater socioeconomic distress was associated with a greater propensity to discount delayed rewards at baseline. Findings also suggest greater perceived higher environmental support was associated with decreasing rates of delay discounting across adolescence for youth from highly socioeconomically distressed areas. These results highlight potential future avenues for preventative and intervention efforts to improve positive youth outcomes.

2.
Health Place ; 89: 103280, 2024 Jul 01.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38954962

ABSTRACT

Recent work finds that upward neighborhood mobility-defined as reductions in neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage due to moving-may improve birth outcomes. Less work, however, explores whether changes in socioeconomic context differentially impact birth outcomes by maternal race and ethnicity. In the US, mothers of minoritized racial and ethnic identity often experience worse neighborhood conditions and pregnancy outcomes than White mothers. Using a sibling-linked dataset, we examined whether neighborhood mobility corresponds with changes in preterm birth risk among Asian (N = 130,079), Black (N = 50,149), Hispanic (N = 429,938), and White (N = 233,428) mothers who delivered multiple live births in California between 2005 and 2015. We linked residential addresses at each birth to census-derived indices of neighborhood disadvantage and defined levels of neighborhood mobility as moving-induced changes in disadvantage between pregnancies. We mapped neighborhood mobility patterns and fit conditional logistic regression models estimating the odds of preterm birth in the sibling delivered after moving, controlling for the risk of preterm birth in the sibling delivered before moving, by maternal race and ethnicity. Dot density maps highlight racialized patterns of neighborhood mobility and segregation between Black and White mothers. Regression results show that Black and, in some cases, Asian and Hispanic mothers who experienced upward mobility (moves away from neighborhood disadvantage) exhibited reduced odds of preterm birth in the second delivery. Upward mobility did not reduce the odds of preterm birth among White mothers. Findings suggest that policies and programs that enable opportunities for neighborhood mobility may reduce persistent racial and ethnic disparities in adverse birth outcomes.

3.
J Urban Health ; 2024 Jun 10.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38858276

ABSTRACT

Historical structural racism in the built environment contributes to health inequities, yet to date, research has almost exclusively focused on racist policy of redlining. We expand upon this conceptualization of historical structural racism by examining the potential associations of probable blockbusting, urban renewal, and proximity to displacement from freeway construction, along with redlining, to multiple contemporary health measures. Analyses linked historical structural racism, measured continuously at the census-tract level using archival data sources, to present-day residents' physical health measures drawn from publicly accessible records for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Outcome measures included average life expectancy and the percentage of residents reporting hypertension, stroke, coronary heart disease, smoking, insufficient sleep, sedentary behavior, and no health insurance coverage. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine separate and additive associations between structural racism and physical health measures. Redlining, probable blockbusting, and urban renewal were associated with shorter life expectancy and a higher prevalence of cardiovascular conditions, risky health behaviors, and residents lacking health insurance coverage. Probable blockbusting and urban renewal had the most consistent correlations with all 8 health measures, while freeway displacement was not reliably associated with health. Additive models explained a greater proportion of variance in health than any individual structural racism measure alone. Moreover, probable blockbusting and urban renewal accounted for relatively more variance in health compared to redlining, suggesting that research should consider these other measures in addition to redlining. These preliminary correlational findings underscore the importance of considering multiple aspects of historical structural racism in relation to current health inequities and serve as a starting point for additional research.

4.
Cities Health ; 8(1): 70-81, 2024.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38585045

ABSTRACT

Research examining the nature of food shopping often considers proximity to the nearest or overall distance travelled to multiple stores. Such studies make up a portion of new work on so-called 'food deserts' and the issues inherent in the term, including that most people do not shop at their nearest store, and mobility challenges vary vastly from one person to the next. Increasing the knowledge base on shopping characteristics could be useful for behavioral interventions and programs aimed at increasing healthy food shopping. In this study, we examined the shopping characteristics of 627 caregivers whose children were enrolled in a pediatric fresh produce prescription program at one of three large pediatric clinics in Flint, Michigan. We compared these characteristics to the potential of a new food cooperative to improve geographic accessibility to healthy food. In particular, we propose the expansion of the prescription program to this new cooperative for health-related as well as local economic development reasons. Our work bridges topics of interest to researchers and practitioners working in nutrition, food access, and economic development.

5.
Pediatrics ; 153(2)2024 Jan 01.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-38192230

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: There are well-documented links between structural racism and inequities in children's opportunities. Yet, when it comes to understanding the role of the built environment, a disproportionate focus on redlining obscures other historical policies and practices such as blockbusting, freeway displacement, and urban renewal that may impact contemporary child development. We hypothesized that historical structural racism in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania's, built environment would be associated with fewer contemporary educational, socioeconomic, and health opportunities. We also hypothesized that these measures would explain more collective variance in children's opportunities than redlining alone. METHODS: We used geospatial data from the US Census, Mapping Inequality Project, and other archival sources to construct historical measures of redlining, blockbusting, freeway displacement, and urban renewal in ArcGIS at the census tract level. These were linked with data from the Child Opportunity Index 2.0 to measure children's opportunities across domains of education, socioeconomic status, and health. We ran spatial regression analyses in Stata 18.0 to examine individual and collective associations between structural racism and children's opportunities. RESULTS: Historical redlining, blockbusting, and urban renewal were largely associated with fewer contemporary educational, socioeconomic, and health opportunities, and explained up to 47.4% of the variance in children's opportunities. The measures collectively explained more variance in children's opportunities than redlining alone. CONCLUSIONS: In support of our hypotheses, novel measures of structural racism were related to present-day differences in children's opportunities. Findings lay the groundwork for future research focused on repairing longstanding harm perpetuated by structural racism.


Subject(s)
Racism , Systemic Racism , Child , Humans , Child Development , Social Class , Pennsylvania , Built Environment , Residence Characteristics
6.
J Heart Lung Transplant ; 43(1): 134-147, 2024 01.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37643656

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The study objective was to assess disparities in outcomes in the waitlist and post-heart transplantation (HT) according to socioeconomic status (SES) in the old and new U.S. HT allocation systems. METHODS: Adult HT candidates in the United Network for Organ Sharing database from 2014 through 2021 were included. Old or new system classification was according to listing before or after October 18, 2018. SES was stratified by patient ZIP code and median household income via U.S. Census Bureau and classified into terciles. Competing waitlist outcomes and post-transplantation survival were compared between systems. RESULTS: In total, 26,450 patients were included. Waitlisted candidates with low SES were more frequently younger, female, African American, and with higher body mass index. Reduced cumulative incidence (CI) of HT in the old system occurred in low SES (53.5%) compared to middle (55.7%, p = 0.046), and high (57.9%, p < 0.001). In the new system, the CI of HT was 65.3% in the low SES vs middle (67.6%, p = 0.002) and high (70.2%, p < 0.001), and SES remained significant in the adjusted analysis. In the old system, CI of death/delisting was similar across SES. In the new system, low SES had increased CI of death/delisting (7.4%) vs middle (6%, p = 0.012) and high (5.4%, p = 0.002). The old system showed similar 1-year survival across SES. In the new system, recipients with low SES had decreased 1-year survival (p = 0.041). CONCLUSIONS: SES affects waitlist and post-transplant outcomes. In the new system, all SES had increased access to HT; however, low SES had increased death/delisting due to worsening clinical status and decreased post-transplant survival.


Subject(s)
Healthcare Disparities , Heart Failure , Heart Transplantation , Social Class , Waiting Lists , Adult , Female , Humans , Black or African American , Incidence , Retrospective Studies , Male
7.
Appetite ; 191: 107041, 2023 Sep 12.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37709149

ABSTRACT

Among the many factors contributing to increased consumption of ultraprocessed foods, a societal decline in cooking skills is a barrier to achieving healthy dietary patterns among children and adolescents. The current study assessed the effectiveness of a healthy cooking program, its geographic reach, and whether program format (child only, in-person format vs. family-based, virtual format) influenced outcomes. This was a quasi-experimental comparison study using youths' (8-18 years old) pre-post surveys, paired t-tests, propensity score matching, and hot spot analysis. Children participated in one of two healthy cooking programs: Flint Kids Cook (FKC)] in-person or [Flint Families Cook (FFC) virtual. FKC was facilitated inside a farmers' market commercial kitchen, whereas FFC took place virtually, in families' homes. Youth were eligible to participate in FKC if they were age 8-18 years, spoke English, and had not participated in a prior session. Families were eligible to participate in FFC if they had a child(ren) age 8-18 years, spoke English, and had not participated in a prior session of FKC or FFC. A total of 246 children (152 FKC; 94 FFC) completed assessments. FFC participants reported improved cooking self-efficacy (p < 0.001), intake of vegetables (p = 0.04), health-related quality of life (HRQoL; p = 0.01), and physical functioning (p < 0.001). Geographic reach, cooking self-efficacy, attitude towards cooking, and HRQoL exit scores did not differ between virtual or in-person programs. However, virtual program participants reported higher intake of whole grains (p = 0.02) and total fruits (p = 0.02) than in-person participants. Differences in outcomes based on program format included notable dietary improvements among youth who participated in the family-based virtual program.

8.
J Environ Manage ; 346: 118930, 2023 Nov 15.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37729835

ABSTRACT

Illegal dumping is a public health burden for communities suffering from historical disinvestment. We conducted a mixed methods study to answer: 1) What are stakeholder perspectives on social/environmental determinants of illegal dumping? and 2) Do these or other characteristics predict known locations of illegal dumping? We employed an exploratory sequential design in which we collected and analyzed in-depth interviews (n=12) with service providers and residents and subsequently collected and analyzed data from multiple secondary sources. Stakeholders endorsed nine determinants of illegal dumping: Economic Decline, Scale of Vacancy, Lack of Monitoring, Poor Visibility, Physical Disorder, Illegal Activity, Norms, Accessibility, and Seclusion. Results demonstrate important community-identified, modifiable, social, and environmental characteristics related to illegal dumping with the potential to inform effective prevention.

9.
Health Place ; 83: 103074, 2023 09.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37482035

ABSTRACT

Leveraging the capabilities of the Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure (HSDI) and composite indices we explore the importance of children's built and social environments on health. We apply contemporary GIS methods to a set of 2000 historical school records contextualized within an existing HSDI to establish seven variables measuring the relative quality of each child's built and social environments. We then combined these variables to create a composite index that assesses acute (short-term) health risks generated by their environments. Our results show that higher acute index values significantly correlated with higher presence of disease in the home. Further, higher income significantly correlated with lower acute index values, indicating that the relative quality of children's environments in our study area were constrained by familial wealth. This work demonstrates the importance of analyzing multiple activity spaces when assessing built and social environments, as well as the importance of spatial microdata.


Subject(s)
Schools , Social Environment , Humans , Child , Residence Characteristics
10.
J Stud Alcohol Drugs ; 84(1): 158-170, 2023 01.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36799686

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Research on alcohol environments has established that poorer and minoritized communities are frequently overburdened by off-premise outlets (e.g., liquor stores). These outlets have more associated harms, including increased alcohol consumption and crime rates. Little, if any, research has shown how these socio-spatial disparities in exposure have grown or shifted over time, and no studies have established a method for re-creating historical alcohol environments. METHOD: Our results suggest that in our study city of Flint, MI, disparities in the alcohol environment have narrowed since 1950. Although liquor stores are still more likely to be located in poorer and more heavily African American neighborhoods, the pattern has become insignificant over time. Furthermore, the number of alcohol outlets per capita has declined. Thus, although the city remains more overburdened with alcohol outlets than its suburbs, the disparity has shrunk. CONCLUSIONS: This work has implications for those working in alcohol prevention and policy, as well as in urban planning. Practitioners and researchers can use this method to model alcohol availability over time in their own communities, which helps better inform the discussion on disparities experienced in poor and minoritized neighborhoods.


Subject(s)
Alcohol Drinking , Alcoholic Beverages , Humans , Alcohol Drinking/epidemiology , Commerce , Crime , Residence Characteristics
11.
Appl Spat Anal Policy ; 16(2): 561-581, 2023.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36532713

ABSTRACT

Research on alcohol outlet density consistently shows greater disparities in exposure in disinvested communities. Likewise, structural racism via discriminatory housing practices has created many of the issues that beset contemporary disinvested neighborhoods. Little work, however, has examined the relationship between housing practices and alcohol outlet disparities. The central premise of our work is that these discriminatory and inequitable practices create distinctions in the alcohol environment, and that such disparities have implications for work on alcohol policy. Here we link alcohol outlet density with a spatial database examining redlining, blockbusting, and gentrification in Baltimore, Maryland, and Flint, Michigan (two cities with common experiences of urban disinvestment over the last 50 years). Standard measures are used to account for the impacts of neighborhood racial, socioeconomic, and housing composition in a multilevel model. Our findings highlight that gentrification and redlining are strongly associated with alcohol outlet density, while blockbusting is not. Gentrification and redlining also frequently co-occur in inner-urban areas, while the more suburban phenomenon of blockbusting rarely overlaps with either. These findings further contextualize nascent work on structural racism in housing that illustrates important disparities along the lines of these distinct practices. Future work should consider how legacy impacts of discriminatory housing patterns impact our communities today.

12.
J Am Coll Health ; 71(8): 2426-2435, 2023 11.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34469700

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Using Bronfenbrenner's socio-ecological model as a frame, we explored the impact of neighborhood disadvantage, household chaos, and personal stressors on current mental health symptoms in college students. PARTICIPANTS: 144 students at a large, public university in the southern U.S. METHODS: Participants completed measures of demographics, family-of-origin household chaos, stressors, anxiety, and depression, and provided their childhood home ZIP code. Using U.S. Census Data, four structural indicators of neighborhood disadvantage were extracted and appended to each participant's ZIP code. RESULTS: Hierarchical regression revealed that all three variables predicted anxiety symptoms. However, only household chaos and personal stressors predicted current depressive symptoms. Unexpectedly, greater neighborhood disadvantage predicted lower levels of current anxiety. Mediation analyses demonstrated that personal stressors partially mediated the relationships between household chaos and mental health symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: College administration and counseling centers may wish to consider pre-college factors that influence college students' current anxious and depressive symptoms.


Subject(s)
Mental Health , Students , Humans , Child , Students/psychology , Universities , Anxiety/epidemiology , Neighborhood Characteristics
13.
Diving Hyperb Med ; 52(4): 237-244, 2022 Dec 20.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36525681

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION: Faults or errors during use of closed-circuit rebreathers (CCRs) can cause hypoxia. Military aviators face a similar risk of hypoxia and undergo awareness training to determine their 'hypoxia signature', a personalised, reproducible set of symptoms. We aimed to establish a hypoxia signature among divers, and to investigate their ability to detect hypoxia and self-rescue while cognitively overloaded. METHODS: Eight CCR divers and 12 scuba divers underwent an initial unblinded hypoxia exposure followed by three trials; a second hypoxic trial and two normoxic trials in randomised order. Hypoxia was induced by breathing on a CCR with no oxygen supply. Subjects pedalled on a cycle ergometer while playing a neurocognitive computer game to simulate real world task loading. Subjects identified hypoxia symptoms by pointing to a board listing common hypoxia symptoms, and were instructed to perform a 'bailout' procedure to mimic self-rescue if they perceived hypoxia. Divers were prompted to bailout if peripheral oxygen saturation fell to 75%, or after six minutes during normoxic trials. Subsequently we interviewed subjects to determine their ability to distinguish hypoxia from normoxia. RESULTS: Ninety-five percent of subjects (19/20) showed agreement between unblinded and blinded hypoxia symptoms. Subjects correctly identified the gas mixture in 85% of the trials. During unblinded hypoxia, only 25% (5/20) of subjects performed unprompted bailout. Fifty-five percent of subjects (11/20) correctly performed the bailout but only when prompted, while 15% (3/20) were unable to bailout despite prompting. During blinded hypoxia 45% of subjects (9/20) performed the bailout unprompted while 15% (3/20) remained unable to bailout despite prompting. CONCLUSIONS: Although our data support a normobaric hypoxia signature among both CCR and scuba divers under experimental conditions, most subjects were unable to recognise hypoxia in real time and perform a self-rescue unprompted, although this improved in the second hypoxia trial. These results do not support hypoxia exposure training for CCR divers.


Subject(s)
Diving , Humans , Hypoxia , Respiration
14.
Spat Spatiotemporal Epidemiol ; 43: 100536, 2022 11.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36460446

ABSTRACT

COVID-19's rapid onset left many public health entities scrambling. But establishing community-academic partnerships to digest data and create advocacy steps offers an opportunity to link research to action. Here we document disparities in COVID-19 death uncovered during a collaboration between a health department and university research center. We geocoded COVID-19 deaths in Genesee County, Michigan, to model clusters during two waves in spring and fall 2020. We then aggregated these deaths to census block groups, where group-based trajectory modeling identified latent patterns of change and continuity. Linking with socioeconomic data, we identified the most affected communities. We discovered a geographic and racial gap in COVID-19 deaths during the first wave, largely eliminated during the second. Our partnership generated added and immediate value for community partners, including around prevention, testing, treatment, and vaccination. Our identification of the aforementioned racial disparity helped our community nearly eliminate disparities during the second wave.


Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Humans , Michigan/epidemiology , Seasons
15.
Front Psychol ; 13: 933245, 2022.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36312120

ABSTRACT

Infants learn and develop within an ecological context that includes family, peers, and broader built and social environments. This development relies on proximal processes-reciprocal interactions between infants and the people and environments around them that help them understand their world. Most research examining predictors of proximal processes like parent-child interaction and parenting has focused on elements within the home and family. However, factors like the neighborhood built environment may also exhibit an influence, and may be particularly critical in infancy, as socioeconomic disparities in cognition and language emerge early in life. Moreover, influence from the built environment could independently exacerbate these disparities, as research indicates that neighborhood impacts may be especially relevant for families living in neighborhoods that have experienced disinvestment and therefore have been under-resourced. The current study examines these questions by determining the association of neighborhood vacancy rate and observed physical disorder-indicators of poverty, residential stability, and long-term structural discrimination-with parental cognitive stimulation among predominantly Black/African-American families in Flint, Michigan. Flint is particularly salient for this study because vacancy rates and disinvestment vary widely across the city, driven by its long-time status as a city struggling economically. Regression analyses controlling for caregiver education, mental health, and social support indicated that vacancy rate and physical disorder negatively predicted parental cognitive stimulation. Moreover, there were significant interactions between the built environment and social support, indicating that, particularly for parent-child shared reading, vacancy rate and physical disorder predicted reduced shared reading only when parents had limited social support. These results have important implications for public policy around vacant property demolition and neighborhood reinvestment programs, as they indicate that the neighborhood built environment is associated with parenting behaviors that have important impacts on infants' learning and development.

16.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36231725

ABSTRACT

Geography has an important role to play in shaping the direction of medical research. In particular, its tools and theory provide essential understanding to the impacts of place on health behaviors and outcomes. Understanding some of its evolution-particularly into the subfield of medical geography-is therefore useful both for geographers and medical researchers. In this paper, we present some of the debates that geographers have grappled with, the growth of GIS (particularly in the context of medical research), some important methodological considerations that geographers help center, and some recommendations for future work at this nexus. Throughout, we speak from the perspective of geographers who have worked nearly exclusively in the health sciences since obtaining our PhDs.


Subject(s)
Biomedical Research , Geography
17.
Soc Sci Med ; 311: 115291, 2022 Oct.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-36088720

ABSTRACT

Leveraging community engagement from past research may yield frameworks on which to build new inquiries. We previously integrated community voice into the development of a healthfulness index to increase awareness of social determinants of health in the built environment and inform deployment of public health interventions in the Flint (Michigan, USA) Center for Health Equity Solutions. Here we combine the healthfulness index with self-reported chronic disease and health outcomes (n = 12,279) from a community-based healthcare entity, the Genesee Health Plan. The healthfulness index purports to predict how health-promoting a neighborhood is based on many spatially varying characteristics; by linking our health plan data to this index, we validate the effectiveness of the healthfulness index. After geocoding all enrollees and joining their healthfulness scores, we conducted a series of logistic regressions to compare the relationship between self-reported outcomes and healthfulness. Matching the two intervention projects of our center (revolving around healthy eating & physical activity in project 1 and mental health sustainment & substance use prevention in project 2), our analyses also focused on classes of outcomes related to a) cardiovascular disease and b) mental health. In only select cases, higher (better) healthfulness scores from each project were independently associated with better cardiovascular and mental health outcomes, controlling for age, race, and sex. Generally, however, healthfulness did not add predictive strength to the association between health and sociodemographic covariates. Even so, the use of composite healthfulness indices to describe the health-promoting or degrading qualities of a neighborhood could be valuable in identifying differences in health outcomes. Future researchers could further explore healthcare claims datasets to increase understanding of the links between healthfulness and health outcomes. This and future work will be valuable in advocacy toward additional healthfulness indices to aid other communities in enriching understanding between the built environment and health.

18.
Am J Emerg Med ; 51: 393-396, 2022 Jan.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34826787

ABSTRACT

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Emergency department (ED)-initiated buprenorphine/naloxone has been shown to improve treatment retention and reduce illicit opioid use; however, its potential may be limited by a lack of accessible community-based facilities. This study compared one state's geographic distribution of EDs to outpatient treatment facilities that provide buprenorphine treatment and identified ED and geographic factors associated with treatment access. METHODS: Treatment facility data were obtained from the SAMHSA 2018 National Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment Facilities, and ED data were obtained from the Michigan College of Emergency Physician's 2018 ED directory. Geospatial analysis compared EDs to buprenorphine treatment facilities using 5-, 10-, and 20-mile network buffers. RESULTS: Among 131 non-exclusively pediatric EDs in Michigan, 57 (43.5%) had a buprenorphine treatment facility within 5 miles, and 66 (50.4%) had a facility within 10 miles. EDs within 10 miles of a Medicaid-accepting, outpatient buprenorphine treatment facility had higher average numbers of beds (41 vs. 15; p < 0.0001) and annual patient volumes (58,616 vs. 17,484; p < 0.0001) compared to those without. Among Michigan counties with EDs, those with at least one buprenorphine facility had larger average populations (286,957 vs. 44,757; p = 0.005) and higher annual rates of opioid overdose deaths (mean 18.3 vs. 13.0 per 100,000; p = 0.02) but were similar in terms of opioid-related hospitalizations and socioeconomic distress. CONCLUSION: Only half of Michigan EDs are within 10 miles of a buprenorphine treatment facility. Given these limitations, expanding access to ED-initiated buprenorphine in states similar to Michigan may require developing alternative models of care.


Subject(s)
Architectural Accessibility/statistics & numerical data , Buprenorphine/therapeutic use , Emergency Service, Hospital/statistics & numerical data , Health Services Accessibility/statistics & numerical data , Narcotic Antagonists/therapeutic use , Opioid-Related Disorders/drug therapy , Hospital Bed Capacity/statistics & numerical data , Hospitalization/statistics & numerical data , Humans , Medicaid , Michigan , Opiate Overdose/epidemiology , Socioeconomic Factors , Spatial Analysis , United States
19.
Ann Epidemiol ; 67: 29-34, 2022 03.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-34923119

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: The establishment of community-academic partnerships to digest data and create actionable policy and advocacy steps is of continuing importance. In this paper, we document COVID-19 racial and geographic disparities uncovered via a collaboration between a local health department and university research center. METHODS: We leverage individual level data for all COVID-19 cases aggregated to the census block group level, where group-based trajectory modeling was employed to identify latent patterns of change and continuity in COVID-19 diagnoses. RESULTS: Linking with socioeconomic data from the census, we identified the types of communities most heavily affected by each of Michigan's two waves (in spring and fall of 2020). This includes a geographic and racial gap in COVID-19 cases during the first wave, which is largely eliminated during the second wave. CONCLUSIONS: Our work has been extremely valuable for community partners, informing community-level response toward testing, treatment, and vaccination. In particular, identifying and conducting advocacy on the sizeable racial disparity in COVID-19 cases during the first wave in spring 2020 helped our community nearly eliminate disparities throughout the second wave in fall 2020.


Subject(s)
COVID-19 , COVID-19/epidemiology , Censuses , Humans , Incidence , Michigan/epidemiology , Racial Groups
20.
Urban Plan ; 7(4): 153-166, 2022.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37033410

ABSTRACT

Disordered urban environments negatively impact mental health symptoms and disorders. While many aspects of the built environment have been studied, one influence may come from inequitable, discriminatory housing practices such as redlining, blockbusting, and gentrification. The patterns of disinvestment and reinvestment that follow may be an underlying mechanism predicting poor mental health. In this study, we examine pathways between such practices and internalizing symptoms (i.e., anxiety and depression) among a sample of African American youth in Baltimore, Maryland, considering moderation and mediation pathways including neighborhood social cohesion and sex. In our direct models, the inequitable housing practices were not significant predictors of social cohesion. In our sex moderation model, however, we find negative influences on social cohesion: for girls from gentrification, and for boys from blockbusting. Our moderated mediation model shows that girls in gentrifying neighborhoods who experience lower social cohesion have higher levels of internalizing symptoms. Likewise for boys, living in a formerly blockbusted neighborhood generates poorer social cohesion, which in turn drives higher rates of internalizing symptoms. A key implication of this work is that, in addition to standard measures of the contemporary built environment, considering other invisible patterns related to discriminatory and inequitable housing practices is important in understanding the types of neighborhoods where anxiety and depression are more prevalent. And while some recent work has discussed the importance of considering phenomena like redlining in considering long-term trajectories of neighborhoods, other patterns such as blockbusting and gentrification may be equally important.

SELECTION OF CITATIONS
SEARCH DETAIL
...