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How people pay is critically important to consumers and businesses alike. Many consumers are choosing to pay for goods and services from an increasing number of options. Tech‐savvy urbanites buy coffee by tapping their phone on a reader. Parents returning from a night out use peer‐to‐peer payment apps, such as Venmo, to pay the sitter. The recent explosion of financial innovations promises faster, more efficient, and cheaper transactions. These increasing digital payment options coincide with decreased number and volume of cash transactions. However, vulnerable populations face more constrained payment choices and often rely exclusively on cash. Without experience, devices, or acceptable credit histories, vulnerable populations may have little access to digital transactions. The advantages of falling digital costs and other benefits thus accrue to the digitally connected. At the same time, those who must transact in coins and paper money are likely to find their relative costs increasing. This paper highlights payment trends and the potential impact on vulnerable populations in the United States as we move toward a cashless society. This paper should stimulate discussions of public policy initiatives to mitigate digital payment issues for vulnerable people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A longstanding line of research in urban studies explores how cities can be understood through their appearance. However, what remains unclear is to what extent urban dwellers' everyday life can be explained by the visual clues of the urban environment. In this paper, we address this question by applying a computer vision model to 27 million street view images across 80 counties in the United States. Then, we use the spatial distribution of notable urban features identified through the street view images, such as street furniture, sidewalks, building façades, and vegetation, to predict the socioeconomic profiles of their immediate neighborhood. Our results show that these urban features alone can account for up to 83% of the variance in people's travel behavior, 62% in poverty status, 64% in crime, and 68% in health behaviors. The results outperform models based on points of interest (POI), population, and other demographic data alone. Moreover, incorporating urban features captured from street view images can improve the explanatory power of these other methods by 5% to 25%. We propose "urban visual intelligence" as a process to uncover hidden city profiles, infer, and synthesize urban information with computer vision and street view images. This study serves as a foundation for future urban research interested in this process and understanding the role of visual aspects of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of energy consumption's Green Quality Index (GQI) on carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions in the United States from 1970 to 2021. At this point, the estimated models control for the effects of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, urban population, and globalization on CO 2 emissions. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag estimations demonstrate that GQI and globalization reduce CO 2 emissions in the short- and long run. However, GDP per capita and urban population are positively related to CO 2 emissions in the short- and long-run. Different estimation techniques confirm the long-run baseline findings. Potential policy implications for reducing CO 2 emissions in the United States are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the conventional wisdom that urban residents have reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic by fleeing city centres for the suburbs. A conventional panel model of US ZIP code-level data provides mixed evidence in support of a shifting housing preference for more space or neighbourhoods farther from the urban core. Regressions accounting for spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity show strong support of an urban flight within metro areas, but this local phenomenon is uneven across broad regions of the United States. The finding of geographical disparity underscores both the local as well as the regional nature of housing market conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban–rural differences in partisan political loyalty are as familiar in the United States as they are in other countries. In this paper, we examine Gallup survey data from the early-2000s through 2018 to understand the urban–rural fissure that has been so noticeable in recent elections. We consider the potential mechanisms of an urban–rural political divide. We suggest that urban and rural dwellers oppose each other because they reside in far apart locations without much interaction and support different political parties because population size structures opinion quite differently in small towns compared with large cities. In particular, we consider the extent to which the compositional characteristics (i.e., race, income, education, etc.) of the individuals living in these locales drives the divide. We find that sizable urban–rural differences persist even after accounting for an array of individual-level characteristics that typically distinguish them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is becoming one of the dominant approaches for bringing evidence- and consensus-based cancer prevention and control practices to medically underserved communities. There are many examples of how CBPR has been useful for generating culturally specific solutions for different health issues that affect African-Americans. However, few examples exist in the literature on how the CBPR approach can be applied to address prostate cancer. This paper describes a collaborative process for linking inner-city, African-American men to free prostate cancer education, physician counseling, and screening opportunities (prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing and digital rectal examination (DRE)). The site of this community-based participatory project was the city of Buffalo, located in Erie County, New York. The collaborative, community-academic process that is described includes the following: (1) planning and conducting a community needs assessment to contextualize local prostate cancer issues, (2) organizing town and gown event planning, and (3) manipulating aspects of the built environment to build an infrastructure within the community to address disparities in screening opportunities. This paper concludes with a description of lessons learned that can help others develop and implement similar activities in other communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether people's mood and optimism affect economic activity. We consider two sets of exogenous proxies for optimism that are unrelated to the economic environment: (1) weather (average temperature and cloud cover) and (2) sports and political optimism. We show that economic recessions are weaker and expansions are stronger in the United States where local individuals are more optimistic. Further, local optimism has a stronger impact on state‐level business cycles of smaller states and regions with low levels of risk sharing. In contrast, the incremental effects of local optimism are weaker in states where people are younger, more educated and sophisticated, and socially more connected. States with larger concentration of minority and urban population also exhibit lower sensitivity to variations in mood and optimism. Alternative explanations based on the state's industrial composition, tax environment, migration, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), oil shocks, and direct economic impact of weather cannot explain these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Antipode is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An improved understanding of reclassification as a sociodemographic component of urban growth is important for urban planning and sustainable development. However, empirical assessments of the effect of reclassification on urban population dynamics are lacking, especially in countries in the later stage of the urban transition. Using recently available data on spatial reclassification of rural and urban land areas and population, and adopting multiregional demographic methods, we explicitly examine the effects of reclassification, natural growth and rural–urban migration on urban growth in the United States for the intercensal periods of 1990–2000 and 2000–2010. Results suggest that reclassification played a significant role in U.S. urban population change but its magnitude depends on assumptions about the timing of reclassification. The net effect of reclassification on urban change is the largest when reclassification is assumed to occur at the end, and the smallest when assumed to occur at the beginning, of the decennial census periods. While the impact of natural growth on U.S. urban population change is relatively stable, there is significant uncertainty in the effects of reclassification and rural–urban migration. Additionally, international migration is a key source of urban growth in the United States. We find that the places reclassified from rural to urban or from urban to rural experienced the largest changes in population sizes and age composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the segregation and the initial provision of water in the U.S. It mentions that water and sewer infrastructure have historically played a crucial role in eliminating waterborne threats. It discusses that higher rates of residential segregation built their waterworks earlier but were slower to eliminate typhoid fever.

Urban malaise or unhappiness with city life is common in developed countries. City dwellers, particularly those in the largest metropolitan areas, are reported to be the least satisfied with their lives. Using the US General Social Survey (1972-2016), this paper explores the latest happiness trends. The results confirm earlier findings of urban malaise: Americans in general are happiest in smaller cities and rural areas. However, the advantage of rural living is declining - rural Americans are becoming less happy relative to urbanites. Most interestingly, the results show that the latest generation, termed 'Millennials' (1982-2004), as opposed to earlier generations, are the happiest in large cities (an estimated magnitude larger than earning an additional US$100,000 in family income annually). The possible reasons for this trend are explored and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many factors influence yard care in urban and suburban areas, but the explicit difference between front versus back yards is one factor that has not been fully examined. This paper introduces the Landscape Mullet concept. The two key components of this concept are: (1) social norms are an important driver of yard management; and (2) the influence of those norms varies spatially between front (public) to back (private). Thirty-six semi-structured interviews were conducted in six neighborhoods of Baltimore, MD, USA in the summer of 2016. We found that social pressures for yard care practices were not evenly expressed across front/back yards. Moreover, this front/back unevenness holds true in five out of the six neighborhoods we studied, indicating that the front/back, public/private distinction does not appear to be neighborhood-specific. This research extends prior work on the role of social pressures in yard care. Future research should consider this spatial scale of heterogeneity for social and environmental reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobility is a critical element of one's quality of life regardless of one's age. Although the challenges for women are more significant than those for men as they age, far less is known about the gender differences in mobility patterns of older adults, especially in the United States (US) context. This paper reports on a study that examined potential gender gaps in mobility patterns of older adults (aged 65 years and over) in the US by analyzing data from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey. Elderly respondents were first classified into one of six clusters based on socio-demographic variables. A Structural Equation Model (SEM) was then estimated and showed that gender gaps existed in the mobility patterns of the elderly, and the differences were diverse across the different clusters. The most substantial gender gap was found in the Senior Elder with Medical Condition(s) cluster, followed by the High-income Workers cluster and the Middle-income Urban Residents cluster. In contrast, females in the Low-Income Single Elder cluster enjoyed statistically significant positive mobility differences with their male counterparts. Our results also found that female elderly in the Senior Elder with Medical Condition(s) and the Low-income Family Elder clusters suffered most after the cessation of driving, with the largest mobility gender gap in the Middle-income Urban Resident cluster. This study will help transportation planners and policymakers understand gender and other socio-demographic differences in elderly mobility. Thus, it will facilitate the development of measures to improve elderly mobility and reduce gender gaps by recognizing and addressing specific target groups' mobility characteristics and needs rather than treating the elderly as a single potential user group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PURPOSE This mixed methods study sought to describe the extent to which family physicians in urban communities serve socially vulnerable patients and to better understand their practices, their challenges, and the structural supports that could facilitate their patient care. METHODS We conducted a quantitative analysis of questionnaire data from 100% of US physicians recertifying for family medicine from 2017 to 2020. We conducted qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with 22 physician owners of urban, small, independent practices who reported that the majority of their patients were socially vulnerable. RESULTS In 2020, in urban areas across the United States, 19.3% of family physicians served in independent practices with 1 to 5 clinicians, down from 22.6% in 2017. Nearly one-half of these physicians reported that >10% of their patients were socially vulnerable. Interviews with 22 physicians who reported that the majority of their patients were socially vulnerable revealed 5 themes: (1) substantial time spent addressing access issues and social determinants of health, (2) minimal support from health care entities, such as independent practice associations and health plans, and insufficient connection to community-based organizations, (3) myriad financial challenges, (4) serious concerns about the future, and (5) deep personal commitment to serving socially vulnerable patients in independent practice. CONCLUSIONS Small independent practices serving vulnerable patients in urban communities are surviving because deeply committed physicians are making personal sacrifices. Health equity–focused policies could decrease the burden on these physicians and bolster independent practices so that socially vulnerable patients continue to have options when seeking primary care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The paper examines the role of community-based participatory research (CBPR) within the context of social justice literature and practice. Methods: Two CBPR case studies addressing health inequities related to Type 2 Diabetes and Cardiovascular disease were selected from a national cross-site study assessing effective academic-community research partnerships. One CBPR partnership works with African Americans in rural Pemiscot County, Missouri and the other CBPR partnership works with African American and Latinos in urban South Bronx, New York City. Data collection included semi-structured key informant interviews and focus groups. Analysis focused on partnerships' context/ history and their use of multiple justice-oriented strategies to achieve systemic and policy changes in order to address social determinants of health in their communities. Results: Community context and history shaped each partnership's strategies to address social determinants. Four social justice approaches (identity/recognition, procedural, distributive, and structural justice) used by both partnerships were identified. These social justice approaches were employed to address underlying causes of inequitable distribution of resources and power structures, while remaining within a scientific research framework. Conclusion: CBPR can bridge the role of science with civic engagement and political participation, empowering community members to become political agents who integrate evidence into their social justice organizing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial distribution of income shapes the structure and organisation of cities and its understanding has broad societal implications. Despite an abundant literature, many issues remain unclear. In particular, all definitions of segregation are implicitely tied to a single indicator, usually rely on an ambiguous definition of income classes, without any consensus on how to define neighbourhoods and to deal with the polycentric organization of large cities. In this paper, we address all these questions within a unique conceptual framework. We avoid the challenge of providing a direct definition of segregation and instead start from a definition of what segregation is not. This naturally leads to the measure of representation that is able to identify locations where categories are over- or underrepresented. From there, we provide a new measure of exposure that discriminates between situations where categories co-locate or repel one another. We then use this feature to provide an unambiguous, parameter-free method to find meaningful breaks in the income distribution, thus defining classes. Applied to the 2014 American Community Survey, we find 3 emerging classes—low, middle and higher income—out of the original 16 income categories. The higher-income households are proportionally more present in larger cities, while lower-income households are not, invalidating the idea of an increased social polarisation. Finally, using the density—and not the distance to a center which is meaningless in polycentric cities—we find that the richer class is overrepresented in high density zones, especially for larger cities. This suggests that density is a relevant factor for understanding the income structure of cities and might explain some of the differences observed between US and European cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

• Previous studies on contamination spread by flooding undercount sites. • 3.3 million people are at risk of contamination from flooding in US urban areas. • Due to changes in urbanization and climate change these figures are likely to increase. • These risks pose complex challenges for environmental managers and urban planners. Climate change is imposing substantial consequences across physical and social infrastructures. The extent of social disruption and risk to human health are, however, potentially much broader than these general consequences, taken individually, would suggest. To address this gap, we assess the distribution of contaminated sites in the United States (US) and then estimate the impact that flood hazards in urban areas will have on these contaminated sites. Using these measures, we draw inferences about the risk of contamination from climate-impacted extreme weather events, climate adaptation at the local level, social risk and how it is distributed, and a broader understanding of the potential global consequences of climate change. In this paper we address three critical points: 1) the role classification of contaminated sites on our understanding of risk due to climate change; 2) the relationship between contaminated sites and flood risk; and 3) the potential for climate adaption strategies to mediate this risk. We estimate that of the roughly one-third of the US population living in urban areas, up to 3,338,518 people, are living in high-risk flood zones near contaminated sites. Our results suggest severe potential implications for estimates of the negative consequences from climate change and contamination and provide critical insights into the relationship between climate change and the built environment for urban planners and environmental policy makers and managers alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High air temperatures are a public health threat, causing 1300 deaths annually in the United States (US) along with heat-related morbidity and increased electricity consumption for air-conditioning (AC). Increasing tree canopy cover has been proposed as one way to reduce urban air temperatures. Here, we assemble tree cover and developed land-cover information for 97 US cities, housing 59 million people, and use regression relationships to analyze how much current urban tree cover reduces summer (JJA) air temperatures and associated heat-related mortality, morbidity, and electricity consumption. We find that 78% of urban dwellers are in neighborhoods with less than 20% tree cover. Some 15.0 million people (25% of total) experience a reduction of 0.5–1.0°C from tree cover, with another 7.9 million (13% of total) experiencing a reduction of greater than 1.0°C. Current relationships between temperature and health outcomes imply that urban tree cover helps avoid 245–346 deaths annually. Heat–mortality relationships in the 1980s, when a smaller fraction of US households had AC, imply a greater role in the past for urban tree cover in avoiding heat-related mortality. As AC availability has increased, the value of tree cover for avoiding heat-related mortality has decreased, while the value of tree cover for reducing electricity consumption likely has increased. Currently, for the 97 cities studied, the total annual economic value of avoided mortality, morbidity, and electricity consumption is an estimated $1.3–2.9 billion, or $21–49 annually per capita. Applying our results to the entire US urban population, we estimate urban tree cover annually supplies heat-reduction services worth $5.3–12.1 billion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Epilepsy can be burdensome for patients, families, health systems, and society. • Health disparities of people with epilepsy can be worsened by living in rural areas. • Demographics and socioeconomic status drive the poor outcomes, not rurality per se. • Prospective studies with standard definitions of rural are needed. Epilepsy is a leading cause of global disease burden, with people with epilepsy (PWE) experiencing adverse health outcomes related to the psychiatric comorbidities and socioeconomic consequences of the disorder. Rural populations are more likely to be impoverished or uninsured, which could impact health outcomes for rural-dwelling PWE (RPWE). This systematic literature review identified original research studying health disparities and outcomes among RPWE in the United States and Canada to (1) characterize the disparities faced by RPWE and (2) elucidate the effects of these disparities upon clinical outcomes. We performed a systematic search of six electronic databases: Pubmed, Cochrane, PsychInfo, Web of Science, Scopus, and Ovid. Articles considered were original research reports conducted in Canada or the United States before August 2020. A modified Newcastle Ottawa Scale was used to assess the quality of the included studies. Our search returned 2093 articles that examined the health disparities of RPWE, of which six met criteria for this review. Outcome measures of health disparity included in these papers were mortality (2; 33%), use of health resources (2; 33%), and epilepsy prevalence (2; 33%). Only one paper (16%) concluded that RPWE experienced worse health outcomes relative to urban-dwelling PWE, while 5 (84%) found no difference. Our study did not find sufficient evidence that RPWE in the US and Canada experience significant health disparities compared to similar urban populations of PWE. More research using prospective studies and datasets allowing better characterization of rurality is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends research emphasizing gender and gendered inequalities in rural communities are influenced by goods, jobs, and people moving between rural and urban contexts. Drawing from over 1,800 hours of participant observation in a rural community in the central United States, I analyze men's narratives about their trips to nearby cities to illustrate how they constructed and achieved an intersectional ideal of rural masculinity complicated by race, class, and sexuality. Through this analysis I stress the need to consider how multiple, intersecting dimensions of difference and inequality inform constructions of masculinities in rural contexts as rural communities are increasingly linked with cities. Second, and related, I illustrate perceived divisions between rural and urban spaces inform constructions of intersectional masculinities and inequalities even as rural and urban places are increasingly linked, materially, through political-economic processes such as labor markets and immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three decades from 1940 through 1970 mark a turning point in the spatial scale of Black–White residential segregation in the United States compared with earlier years. We decompose metropolitan segregation into three components: segregation within the city, within the suburbs, and between the city and its suburbs. We then show that extreme levels of segregation were well established in most cities by 1940, and they changed only modestly by 1970. In this period, changes in segregation were greater at the metropolitan scale, driven by racially selective population growth in the suburbs. We also examine major sources of rising segregation, including region, metropolitan total, and Black population sizes, and indicators of redlining in the central cities based on risk maps prepared by the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the late 1930s. In addition to overall regional differences, segregation between the city and suburbs and within suburbia increased more in metropolitan areas with larger Black populations, but this relationship was found only in the North. In contrast to some recent theorizing, there is no association between preparation of an HOLC risk map or the share of city neighborhoods that were redlined and subsequent change in any component of segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban centres in the US, Britain and Canada have responded to identified visible 'social problems' such addiction, mental health and homelessness by providing some supportive housing for the urban poor and marginalized. While some critics have questioned what supportive housing specifically entails in terms of the built environment, what remains under explored, though a growing area of concern, is the relationship between surveillance and supportive housing for urban residents identified as having addiction and mental health problems - a gap addressed in this paper. Drawing upon qualitative ethnographic observational data we examine some of the measures of control and coercion that are encroaching into social housing primarily established for poor and marginalized people with addiction and mental health problems in the urban centre of Vancouver, Canada. We witnessed three modes of regulation and control, that vary widely, among the residencies observed: physical surveillance technologies; site-specific modes of coercion; police presence and staff surveillance, which all together impact the everyday lives of residents living in low-income and supportive housing. We argue that supportive housing has the potential to provide its intended commitment - safe and secure affordable housing. However, owing to an (over)emphasis on 'security', the supportive housing we observed were also sites of social control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Providing adequate water supply to the growing number of urban residents will be a challenge faced by many utility managers throughout the remainder of this century. Though traditionally water managers have looked towards supply-based solutions (e.g., expanding reservoirs), recent trends indicate a shift towards demand-side management (e.g., encouraging conservation behaviors). A major part of successfully implementing demand management strategies is understanding the community-specific attitudes and beliefs that may influence uptake of conservation behaviors. Here, we present results from a study aimed at understanding these community-specific attitudes and beliefs towards water conservation. In particular, we leverage survey data from three cities in the Southwestern United States and a state-of-the-art clustering algorithm to determine seven key archetypes of water consumers. These archetypes can be used to determine demand management strategies that might have greater (or lesser) success. This study provides transferable archetypes of consumer attitudes towards water conservation, as well as a novel interdisciplinary methodology that combines social survey data with unsupervised machine learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversification of police forces is widely promoted as a reform for reducing racial disparities in police-civilian interactions and increasing police legitimacy. Despite these potential benefits, nearly every municipal police department in the United States remains predominately White and male. Here, we investigate whether the scale and persistence of minority underrepresentation in policing might partly be explained by a lack of support for diversification among voters and current police officers. Across two studies (N = 2, 661) sampling the US adult population and residents from a city with one of the least representative police forces in the country, individuals significantly overestimate officer diversity at both the local and national levels. We find that correcting these biased beliefs with accurate information reduces trust in police and increases support for hiring new officers from underrepresented groups. In the municipal sample, these corrections also cause an increase in residents' willingness to vote for reforms to diversify their majority White police department. Additional paired decision-making experiments (N = 1, 663) conducted on these residents and current police officers demonstrate that both prefer hiring new officers from currently underrepresented groups, independent of civil service exam performance and other hiring criteria. Overall, these results suggest that attitudes among voters and police officers are unlikely to pose a major barrier to diversity reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews and then discusses selected findings from a seventeen year study about the population prevalence of people who inject drugs (PWID) and of HIV prevalence and mortality among PWID in 96 large US metropolitan areas. Unlike most research, this study was conducted with the metropolitan area as the level of analysis. It found that metropolitan area measures of income inequality and of structural racism predicted all of these outcomes, and that rates of arrest for heroin and/or cocaine predicted HIV prevalence and mortality but did not predict changes in PWID population prevalence. Income inequality and measures of structural racism were associated with hard drug arrests or other properties of policing. These findings, whose limitations and implications for further research are discussed, suggest that efforts to respond to HIV and to drug injection should include supra-individual efforts to reduce both income inequality and racism. At a time when major social movements in many countries are trying to reduce inequality, racism and oppression (including reforming drug laws), these macro-social issues in public health should be both addressable and a priority in both research and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers who attended urban schools as students are uniquely positioned to understand both the structural context that urban schools operate within and the many funds of knowledge that urban students bring to school. The purpose of this study is to examine the funds of knowledge that individuals who have been students in urban schools and now wish to teach in a particular city in the northeastern United States bring to an urban teacher residency program. In this article, we describe these urban residents' funds of knowledge, and argue that residents describe an emerging place-based pedagogical content knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Proposing an interpretable utility-based framework for dynamic activity pattern estimation. • Mapping from individual trip chains to aggregated activity location types. • Estimating traveler behavior with the support of multiple data sources. • Integrating machine learning tools, nested logit model and transportation domain knowledge. • Testing the proposed framework using 2017 national household survey and Google mobility dataset. During the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the activity engagement and travel behavior of city residents have been impacted by government restrictions, such as temporary city-wide lockdowns, the closure of public areas and public transport suspension. Based on multiple heterogeneous data sources, which include aggregated mobility change reports and household survey data, this paper proposes a machine learning approach for dynamic activity chain pattern estimation with improved interpretability for examining behavioral pattern adjustments. Based on historical household survey samples, we first establish a computational graph-based discrete choice model to estimate the baseline travel tour parameters before the pandemic. To further capture structural deviations of activity chain patterns from day-by-day time series, we define the activity-oriented deviation parameters within an interpretable utility-based nested logit model framework, which are further estimated through a constrained optimization problem. By incorporating the long short-term memory method as the explainable module to capture the complex periodic and trend information before and after interventions, we predict day-to-day activity chain patterns with more accuracy. The performance of our model is examined based on publicly available datasets such as the 2017 National Household Travel Survey in the United States and the Google Global Mobility Dataset throughout the epidemic period. Our model could shed more light on transportation planning, policy adaptation and management decisions during the pandemic and post-pandemic phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Children from Black and South Asian ethnic groups are at risk for childhood obesity in the United Kingdom. To inform local action for childhood obesity prevention, it is crucial to explore the basis of ethnic disparities and consider the perspectives of children. This study aimed to understand cultural and contextual factors influencing childhood obesity in an ethnically diverse population using child‐centred methodology. Methods: 'Draw, write and tell' interviews were held with children aged 9–10 years in Coventry, an urban, multi‐ethnic city in the United Kingdom. Data were analysed thematically using framework analysis. Results: Twenty‐six children participated (85% from Black or minority ethnic groups). Children's perspectives revealed universal themes around health, diet, physical activity and weight and highlighted issues specific to ethnic groups and those living in deprived areas. An underlying feature was weight‐based stigmatization and group stereotyping, and an emphasis on internal factors as the cause of obesity. Children described some experiences of social disadvantage but did not regard these as a barrier to being physically active. Children identified cultural or religious practices or experiences of migration that influenced diet and physical activity. Conclusions: These findings allow a broad range of children's perspectives to inform future intervention design. In addition, the study was able to identify the many similarities and small amount of diversity in children's perspectives across ethnic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing how ecosystem services (ES) are distributed among groups of people is critical for making conservation and environmental policy-making more equitable. Here, we evaluate the distribution and equity of changes in ES benefits across demographic and socioeconomic groups in the United States (US) between 2020 and 2100. Specifically, we use land cover and population projections to model potential shifts in the supply, demand, and benefits of the following ES: provision of clean air, protection against a vector-borne disease (West Nile virus), and crop pollination. Across the US, changes in ES benefits are unevenly distributed among socioeconomic and demographic groups and among rural and urban communities, but are relatively uniform across geographic regions. In general, non-white, lower-income, and urban populations disproportionately bear the burden of declines in ES benefits. This is largely driven by the conversion of forests and wetlands to cropland and urban land cover in counties where these populations are expected to grow. In these locations, targeted land use policy interventions are required to avoid exacerbating inequalities already present in the US. Social inequalities may be reflected in how ecosystem services are distributed among groups of people. Here the authors estimate the distribution of three ecosystem services across demographic and socioeconomic groups in the US between 2020 and 2100, finding that non-white and lower-income groups disproportionately bear the loss of ecosystem service benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, racial and ethnic diversity has expanded from the city into the suburbs, the rural–urban interface, and remote rural places across all regions in the United States. This study examines how these population trends shape the possibility of racial residential integration across the American rural–urban continuum and regions. Using the information theory index (H) and racial and ethnic composition thresholds, we identify integrated cities, suburbs, and rural towns and villages that are stably integrated between the 2000 and 2010 censuses. This study shows a substantial number of diverse places where people of different races and ethnicities live near each other. Further, the largest clusters of integration locate in suburbs, followed by rural places, while central cities show the lowest rates of integration. In addition, the West typically hosts larger numbers of integrated communities compared to other regions. Findings suggest that to better understand shifting patterns of American racial inequality, research must look outside the city and toward the West to investigate residential integration as a new form of twenty-first-century race relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background A minority of patients with opioid use disorder are treated for hepatitis C virus infection (HCV). While colocated HCV and opioid agonist therapy (OAT) along with harm reduction can facilitate prevention and cascade to cure, there are few real-world examples of such embedded care models in the United States in the direct-acting antiviral (DAA) era. Methods We conducted a retrospective chart review to determine sustained virologic response (SVR) and reinfection rates during the first 5-year period of DAA availability among individuals tested and treated on-site at Rhode Island's only nonprofit methadone maintenance program. Results Of 275 who initiated DAAs, the mean age (range) was 43 (22–71) years, 34.5% were female, 57.5% had genotype 1a, 23.3% had cirrhosis, and 92% were Medicaid recipients. SVR was 85.0% (232/273), while modified intent-to-treat SVR was 93.2% (232/249); 17 patients did not achieve SVR, 2 awaited SVR 12 weeks post-end-of-treatment, and 24 were lost to follow-up. Thirty reinfections were identified over 375.5 person-years of follow-up (rate, 7.99/100 person-years). The median time to first reinfection (interquartile range) was 128 (85.25–202.5) days. Before July 1, 2018, 72 patients accessed DAAs over 3.7 years; after Medicaid DAA restrictions were lifted, 109 patients accessed DAAs over 1.3 years. The Prior Authorization (PA) process requires many steps, differing across 11 RI insurers, taking 45–120 minutes per patient. Conclusions DAA treatment was effective among a marginalized population in an urban colocated OAT/HCV program. Removing DAA restrictions facilitates treatment initiation. The PA process remains a modifiable barrier to expanding capacity in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details an intergenerational photovoice project exploring spatial and perceptual differences of "place" and health among adult and youth public housing residents in a small urban rustbelt city in the Midwestern United States. It specifically highlights the value of fully participatory photovoice processes-participatory narrative-coding and digital web-based photo-mapping-in furthering conceptual and analytical understanding of "place" and health. Results indicate the critical import of accounting for non-residential locations (i.e. activity spaces), and the significance of engaging the generationally- and spatially-specific social and physical landscapes of residents' lived "place" to improve health opportunities within place-based strategies involving public housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract The United States has an obligation to provide health care to American Indians. Services are generally provided through the Indian Health Service, tribal, or urban Indian health programs. Despite the availability of government-sponsored health services, health care access remains a concern for American Indians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to better understand residential segregation and child/youth health by examining the relationship between a measure of Black-White residential segregation, the index of dissimilarity, and a suite of child and youth health measures in 235 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). MSAs are urban areas with a population of 50,000 or more and adjacent communities that share a high degree of economic and social integration. MSAs are defined by the Office of Management and Budget. Health-related measures included child mortality (CDC WONDER), teen births (NCHS natality data), children in poverty (SAIPE program), and disconnected youth (Measure of America). Simple linear regression and two-level hierarchical linear regression models, controlling for income, total population, % Black, and census region, examined the association between segregation and Black health, White health, and Black-White disparities in health. As segregation increased, Black children and youth had worse health across all four measures, regardless of MSA total and Black population size. White children and youth in small MSAs with large Black populations had worse levels of disconnected youth and teen births with increasing segregation, but no associations were found for White children and youth in other MSAs. Segregation worsened Black-White health disparities across all four measures, regardless of MSA total and Black population size. Segregation adversely affects the health of Black children in all MSAs and White children in smaller MSAs with large Black populations, and these effects are seen in measures that span all of childhood. Residential segregation may be an important target to consider in efforts to improve neighborhood conditions that influence the health of families and children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Suicide mortality rates in rural areas of the United States are twice that of rates in urban areas, and identifying which factors—eg, higher rates of suicidal distress, lower rates of help‐seeking behaviors, or greater access to firearms—contribute to this rural/urban disparity could help target interventions. Method: Using 2015‐2016 data on adult respondents to the California Health Interview Survey (n = 40,041), we examined associations between residence in a rural (vs nonrural) census tract and nonfatal suicidal ideation and attempt. Results: We found that living in a rural area was not associated with nonfatal suicidal behavior (OR for past‐year suicidal ideation = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.63‐1.20; OR for past‐year suicide attempt = 0.55, CI: 0.20‐1.48). Women living in rural areas had higher odds of lifetime suicidal ideation compared to women living in nonrural areas, but this difference was not significant (OR = 1.17, CI: 0.94‐1.44). We also found that, among individuals reporting suicidal behavior, there were few rural/nonrural differences in perceived need for treatment, such as seeing a physician or taking a prescription for mental health problems. Conclusions: Our results do not suggest higher suicidal distress or lower treatment‐seeking behaviors as explanations for the rural/urban disparity in suicide mortality rates. Further attention is needed to the unique risk factors driving suicidality in rural areas, as well as exploring heterogeneity in these factors across different rural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heat waves are an important type of extreme climate event and directly result in more than 130 deaths per year across the United States. Heat waves have been described by several attributes and combinations which constitute various event typologies. Attributes of heat waves from 10 cities are analyzed over the period 1950–2016 to understand how these attributes determine variability in local heat waves and how climate change affects heat waves across the United States. This study uses eight definitions to differentiate heat waves and tests for temporal trends in key properties of heat waves over the period 1950–2016. At least five harmful attributes of heat waves have increased simultaneously for Dallas, Miami, New York, Phoenix, and Portland.Miami showed the greatest change in heat wave season length, frequency, and timing over the study period. Surprisingly, the greatest mean heat wave intensities above daily thresholds were for Bismarck, ND (+8.2 °C) and Syracuse, NY (+6.5 °C). Similar results across Baltimore, MD, Colorado Springs, CO, Dallas, TX, Des Moines, IA, Miami, FL, New York, NY, Phoenix, AZ, and Portland, OR, are presented to clarify the many quantitative differences in heat wave attributes and variance in quantification approaches across climates. This work explores the nexus of quantitative description and social construction of heat waves through the lens of the various regional metrics to describe heat waves. Ultimately, this assessment will guide the development of various strategies to help communities understand and prepare for heat resilience based on local heat wave components. Plain Language Summary: Heat waves are a series of consecutive days and nights with very high temperatures. They impact human health and increase water and energy demands, particularly in the urban areas. Heat waves have different lengths, occur in various seasons, and have different ranges between daytime and nighttime temperatures. These variations create numerous types of heat waves. Although heat waves happen more frequently in hot regions, residents of cities in northern climates also experience various types of heat waves. Analysis of differences in heat wave occurrences from 1950 to 2016 in 10 cities with various climates across the United States shows how different types of heat waves are changing across the United States. We found that many descriptive characteristics are increasing in value through time. For example, heat wave duration has increased in Miami, FL. The findings of this study are intended to guide policy makers, urban managers, and first responders to better prepare for future changes in regional heat waves and mitigate negative impacts of heat waves on human health and the environment. Key Points: This study uses many different definitions for heat wave to make broad comparisonsRegional differences in heat wave components complicate uniform public health and urban management strategiesFrequency and intensity of extreme climate‐related urban heat wave events are increasing for the various climates of the United States [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, past research has shown that Hispanics are less residentially segregated from non-Hispanic Whites than are Blacks. Such research has also shown that like Blacks, Hispanic households are located in poorer neighborhoods than are the average lower-income non-Hispanic White households. However, such studies have been limited for two reasons: (1) they have used a single variable, income, to characterize neighborhoods which is not sufficient to capture the complexity of such areas; and (2) such studies have not focused on Metropolitan Detroit where, unlike in many other large metropolitan areas, the Hispanic population is relatively small and concentrated within a large majority Black central city. This is the first study to examine Hispanic–non-Hispanic White residential segregation and the socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods in Metropolitan Detroit using multiple variables to characterize neighborhoods. The Modified Darden-Kamel Composite Socioeconomic Index was used to characterize neighborhoods and the index of dissimilarity was employed to measure Hispanic–non-Hispanic White residential segregation. The results revealed that the level of Hispanic—non-Hispanic White residential segregation was modest, but Hispanics were restricted to neighborhoods that are of lower quality than neighborhoods occupied by non-Hispanic Whites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To quantify disparities in accessibility and availability of pediatric primary care by modeling interventions across multiple states that compare publicly insured versus privately insured children, and urban versus rural communities.Data Sources: Secondary data sources include 2013 National Plan and Provider Enumeration System, 2009 MAX Medicaid claims, 2012 American Community Survey.Study Design: The study models accessibility and availability of care for all children in seven states.Methods: Optimization modeling with access constraints is used to estimate access. Statistical hypothesis testing is used to quantify systematic disparities.Principal Findings: California has the best accessibility for privately insured children and Minnesota for publicly insured children. Mississippi has the lowest availability for both populations. Overall, the disparities in availability for pediatric primary care are not as significant as in accessibility. Both rural and urban communities are in need of improvement in accessibility to primary care for publicly insured children, although at varying levels across states.Conclusions: Disparities in availability are not as significant as disparities in accessibility. Opportunities to improve access to pediatric primary care vary by state. Generating specific recommendations for small areas is critical to enabling health policy decision makers to improvement access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medicaid expansions through the Affordable Care Act began in January 2014, but we have little information about what is happening in rural areas where provider access and patient resources might be more limited. In 2008, Oregon held a lottery for restricted access to its Medicaid program for uninsured low-income adults not otherwise eligible for public coverage. The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment used this opportunity to conduct the first randomized controlled study of a public insurance expansion. This analysis builds off of previous work by comparing rural and urban survey outcomes and adds qualitative interviews with 86 rural study participants for context. We examine health care access and use, personal finances, and self-reported health. While urban and rural populations have unique demographic profiles, rural populations appear to have benefited from Medicaid as much as urban. Qualitative interviews revealed the distinctive challenges still facing low-income uninsured and newly insured rural populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing postdischarge Medicare expenditures is a key focus for hospitals. Early follow-up care is an important piece of this focus, but it is unclear whether there are rural-urban differences in the impact of follow-up care on Medicare expenditures. To assess this difference, we use the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, Cost and Use Files, 2000-2010. We conduct a retrospective analysis of 30-day postdischarge Medicare expenditures using two-stage residual inclusion with a quantile regression, where the receipt of 7-day follow-up care was the main independent variable. Postdischarge follow-up care increased the 25th percentile of 30-day expenditures, decreased the 75th percentile, and there were no rural-urban differences. Partial effects show postdischarge follow-up care resulted in higher 30-day expenditures among low-cost rural beneficiaries. Ensuring early follow-up care for high-cost beneficiaries may be advantageous to both rural and urban providers in helping reduce postdischarge Medicare expenditures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the fiscal consequences of sustained population loss in American cities. We find the starkest difference between growing and declining cities in their levels of social and economic distress: Declining cities have higher rates of poverty and crime. Our evidence also suggests that shrinking cities have less fiscal capacity than growing cities, although this relationship is complicated by an apparent nonlinearity: Shrinking and rapidly growing cities both have less fiscal capacity than high-demand cities that grow slowly. Lastly, both high distress and low fiscal capacity appear to predict further population loss. Together, our evidence suggests that population loss may both increase social problems and decrease the resources available to solve them, and that declining cities may enter vicious cycles that perpetuate further decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Purpose: Medicaid expansions, prompted by the Affordable Care Act, generated generally positive effects on coverage and alleviated much of the financial burden associated with seeking health care. We do not know if these shifts also extend to the nation's rural populations. Methods: Using 2011‐2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, this study compares trend changes for coverage, access to care, and health care utilization in response to Medicaid expansion among urban and rural residents using a difference‐in‐differences regression approach. Findings: Following Medicaid expansion, low‐income rural and urban residents both experienced reductions in uninsurance; however, the coverage uptake in rural settings (8.5 percentage points [pp], P < .01) was much larger than the uptake in coverage in more urban settings (4.1 pp, P > .10). In spite of larger uptakes in coverage among rural residents, reductions in cost‐related barriers to medical care were slightly larger among urban residents, and access to a regular source of medical care (5.2 pp, P < .05) and doctor visitation (4.5 pp, P < .01) were only statistically significant among urban residents. Conclusions: The ACA Medicaid expansions produced larger gains in coverage for rural residents than urban residents; however, it appears there remain opportunities to improve access to care among potentially vulnerable rural residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies of maternal employment have focused on marital status differences, but the rise in nonmarital cohabiting parenthood problematizes the simple dichotomy between married and unmarried mothers. Theory and previous research yield mixed predictions as to whether cohabiting mothers' employment will more closely resemble that of married mothers or lone unmarried mothers. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, I examine how maternal employment varies across family structures (married parents, cohabiting unmarried parents, and lone unmarried mothers) in the five years after a birth for mothers living in urban areas in the United States. Descriptive statistics show few differences in maternal employment patterns by family structure. Controlling for human capital, however, I find that cohabiting mothers return to work earlier and work more than married mothers. Cohabiting mothers and lone mothers show very similar employment patterns. Additionally, cohabiting mothers who later marry have employment trajectories that are similar to married mothers, whereas married mothers who divorce increase their employment hours. Family characteristics, partner characteristics, and gender attitudes do not explain employment differences between married and cohabiting mothers. I speculate that cohabiting mothers work more than married mothers as a hedge against economic deprivation given high union dissolution rates for cohabiting couples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contingent reciprocity is an important foundation of human cooperation, but we know little about how reciprocal behavior develops across diverse societies, nor about how the development of reciprocal behavior is related to the development of prosocial behavior more broadly. Three- to 16-year-old children were presented with the opportunity to control the allocation of real food rewards in a binary-choice cooperative dilemma. Within dyads children alternated making choices across multiple trials, and reciprocal behavior emerged in three diverse populations (rural Fijian villages, and urban communities in both Fiji and the United States) by age 7-8. There was more societal variation in prosocial behavior than in reciprocal behavior, and there were more substantial differences between Fijians and Americans than between rural and urban populations. This suggests that the development of prosocial behavior is not driven entirely by the development of reciprocity, and differences in prosocial behavior across rural Fijians and urban Americans may not be due only to differences across rural and urban populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanisation is characterised by cycles of activation and obsolescence leaving in their wake an abundance of non-productive space (NPS). Expanding cities report more vacant land than do fixed cities, which report higher structural abandonment. If left untreated, existing NPS can spread to surrounding properties. Using Fort Worth, TX, USA as a case site, this research explores the spatial distribution of NPS using Geographical Information Systems spatial analyses. Directional distributions, time series analyses, spatial assessments using 5-mile buffer increments and weighted suitability models were combined to determine if urban core fragmentation is occurring, despite population and economic growth. Findings indicate that peripheral NPS area decreased but these spaces were redistributed into the urban core. Parcel size and regeneration potential in the city centre also decreased. This has resulted in a fragmented urban core characterised by disconnected and small/irregularly shaped parcels of NPS which are difficult to regenerate—an urban shrapnel. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on the Federal Railway Administration (FRA) database, there were 25,945 highway–rail crossing accidents in the United States between 2002 and 2011. With an extensive research, analysis results showed that there were substantial differences between rural and urban areas at highway–rail grade crossings. However, there is no published study specific on driver's injury severity at highway–rail grade crossings classified by area types. Using an ordered probit modelling approach, the study explores the determinants of driver-injury severity at rural highway–rail grade crossings compared with urban highway–rail grade crossings. The analysis found that motor vehicle driver's injury level at rural highway–rail grade crossing is extremely higher than urban area. Compared to collisions at urban area, collisions happened at rural area tend to result in more severe injuries. These crashes were more prevalent if vehicle drivers are driving at a high speed or the oncoming trains are high-speed. Moreover, highway–rail grade crossing accidents were more likely to occur at rural area without pavement and lighting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: An array of risk factors has been associated with cardiovascular diseases, and developing nations are becoming disproportionately affected by such diseases. Cardiovascular diseases have been reported to be highly prevalent in the Mexican population, but local mortality data is poor. The Mexican side of the US-Mexico border has a culture that is closely related to a developed nation and therefore may share the same risk factors of cardiovascular diseases. We wanted to explore if there was higher cardiovascular mortality in the border region of Mexico compared to the rest of the nation.Methods: We conducted a population based cross-sectional time series analysis to estimate the effects of education, insurance and municipal size in Mexican border (n = 38) and non-border municipalities (n = 2360) and its association with cardiovascular age-adjusted mortality rates between the years 1998-2012. We used a mixed effect linear model with random effect estimation and repeated measurements to compare the main outcome variable (mortality rate), the covariates (education, insurance and population size) and the geographic delimiter (border/non-border).Results: Mortality due to cardiovascular disease was consistently higher in the municipalities along the US-Mexico border, showing a difference of 78 · 5 (95% CI 58 · 7-98 · 3, p < 0 · 001) more cardiovascular deaths after adjusting for covariates. Larger municipal size and higher education levels showed a reduction in cardiovascular mortality of 12 · 6 (95% CI 11 · 4-13 · 8, p < 0 · 001) deaths and 8 · 6 (95% CI 5 · 5-11 · 8, p < 0 · 001) deaths respectively. Insurance coverage showed an increase in cardiovascular mortality of 3 · 6 (95% CI 3 · 1-4 · 0, p < 0 · 001) deaths per decile point increase. There was an increase in cardiovascular mortality of 0 · 3 (95% CI -0 · 001-0 · 6, p = 0 · 050) deaths per year increase in the non-border but a yearly reduction of 2 · 9 (95% CI 0 · 75-5.0, p = 0 · 008) deaths in the border over the time period of 1998-2012.Conclusion: We observed that the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border region is disproportionately affected by cardiovascular disease mortality as compared to the non-border region of Mexico. This was not explained by education, population density, or insurance coverage. Proximity to the US culture and related diet and habits can be explanations of the increasing mortality trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]