Recent ucisose_uppp items

Climate resilience and collective action in Monrovia's coastal communities

Fri, 8 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Like many low-lying coastal nations, Liberia faces severe threats from sea level rise, coastal erosion, and flooding. These threats are particularly acute for residents of informal slum communities, who are relegated to high-hazard areas that lack basic infrastructure and are frequently overlooked by government officials. In addition, Liberia's limited national institutional capacity has left adaptation to coastal residents and other local stakeholders. This research examines how collective action shapes coastal climate adaptation strategies in two of the largest slum communities in Liberia, West Point and New Kru Town. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, this research investigates how residents experience and respond to coastal hazards, the role of government and civil society actors in supporting adaptation, and barriers to effective collective action. The study reveals disparities in government attention between the two communities, with New Kru Town receiving more infrastructural...

Performative planning creates a values mismatch between wildfire plans and community needs.

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

To mitigate the potential impacts of wildfire, communities across the United States are engaging in collaborative wildfire risk mitigation planning. Planning involves identifying a set of goals, developing management strategies to achieve those goals, and codifying the goals and strategies in a written document. A plan's goals and strategies are informed by values-the things plan authors and communities want to protect or enhance. Identifying and evaluating these values can give insight into whether a plan is meeting the needs of local wildfire risk and vulnerability, incorporating best practice from national policies, or simply reflecting broader cultural trends. This paper explores these tensions using the case of Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs), which are local (neighborhood to multicounty) plans developed collaboratively by diverse wildfire-related stakeholders. Drawing on a combination of manual coding and computational text analysis, we first characterize the...

Climate Risk, Governance, and Institutional Adaptation Challenges in Liberia

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sea-level rise, intensifying floods, and deforestation pose urgent risks to low-income coastal countries, yet climate adaptation remains constrained by governance and resource gaps. Despite Liberia’s prominence in global vulnerability rankings, little research has examined the country’s adaptation processes and barriers. This case study addresses that gap by analyzing Liberia’s environmental vulnerabilities and institutional responses. The study first describes key vulnerabilities, including coastal erosion, urban flooding, rainfall and temperature variation, deforestation, and waste management and pollution. It then reviews the main organizations and policy frameworks engaged in climate adaptation and mitigation across the country. The study shows that despite formal policy frameworks such as the National Adaptation Plan and REDD+ Strategy, climate action remains fragmented, underfunded, and politically marginalized. Findings reveal how governance gaps, including limited institutional...

Transboundary water conflicts, cooperation, and pathways forward

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Transboundary water conflicts, cooperation, and pathways forward

Achieving Transboundary Water Security Through Water Innovations: A Framework and Cases

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

ABSTRACT Alternative sources of freshwater, provided by various innovations, have long been available to countries facing acute water stress. We hypothesize that avoiding and/or resolving conflict with neighbors—caused by the uncertainty of continued access to shared surface water and groundwater sources—is another driver of innovation adoption. Furthermore, adoption of alternative freshwater sources may help alleviate transboundary disputes and, thus, hasten water supply independence among neighboring countries. We explore this thesis by examining the experience of Israel and Singapore, two countries that have pursued several innovations including desalination, wastewater reuse, and rainwater harvesting. They have also experienced conflicts with neighbors over water. After examining these nations' motives for adopting innovations, as well as the structure and operation of water innovation governance in each country, we examine the role these supply innovations have played in...

Interrogating “scale” in strategic management-at-scale: lessons from collaborative governance

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract While the field of strategic planning and management has mostly focused on single organizations, a new strand of literature on “strategy management at scale” (SMAS) is exploring the way strategic management can address large-scale, cross-organizational, cross-level, often cross-boundary challenges. The appearance of this new strand has coincided with renewed emphasis on concepts such as public value governance, whole-of-government approaches, and mission-oriented innovation. This essay connects the nascent SMAS literature with longer-standing concepts from collaborative governance to better theorize what is meant by “at scale” in SMAS. We apply Ansell and Torfing’s scale framework, which pinpointed diverse ways in which collaborations could scale, to foundational SMAS literature. SMAS currently emphasizes jurisdictional and functional aspects of scale, with less attention to geographic or temporal considerations. We suggest ways that a more multi-dimensional understanding...

Introduction: Strategy and Success in the Nuclear Disarmament Movement

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Visible injustice and dangerous and provocative policies are sometimes met with large and powerful social movements that sometimes generate favorable policy responses. But, more frequently, recognized dangers or injustices do not generate mass responses. Figuring out how to recognize a meaningful opportunity for mass concern and how to put a consequential movement together have long occupied activist organizers and scholars. Of course, effective organizing entails elements of direct outreach, convincing citizens that something’s wrong, that it could be different, and that their efforts might matter. But the effectiveness of the pitch and the appeal of the proposal are mightily affected by the context. Organizing is likely to be more effective when the importance of a problem and authorities’ inadequate responses are clear. Recognition of a problem is a start to a much longer and more difficult project of building a social movement.

Tipping Point for Advanced Capitalism: Class, Class Consciousness and Activism in the ''Knowledge Economy,''

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tipping Point for Advanced Capitalism: Class, Class Consciousness and Activism in the ''Knowledge Economy,''

How to Save the World: Learning from Citizen Engagement on Nuclear Weapons

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Approaching the task of generating a new citizen’s movement for restraint on nuclear weapons, the article reviews the history and influence of previous movements against nuclear weapons, noting that urgent policy issues do not, by themselves, generate citizen engagement. Considering prior movements, the article notes that the Scientists Campaign, the Ban the Bomb Movement, the Campaign against Anti-Ballistic Missiles, and the Nuclear Freeze, all engaged citizen activists by pointing to policy problems and offering overly simple remedies that captured public attention. Those movements included dramatic resistance actions, including civil disobedience, and more conventional institutional efforts. Partly in response to movements, authorities moderated rhetoric and policies to reduce a public sense of urgency. Subsequent movements must address contemporary policy problems and offer easily understandable potential responses and embrace a diversity of political tactics.

Tipping Point for Advanced Capitalism: Class, Class Consciousness and Activism in the “Knowledge Economy,”

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Tipping Point for Advanced Capitalism: Class, Class Consciousness and Activism in the “Knowledge Economy,”

Barriers to Effective Flood Risk Management in India: A Case of 2021 Chiplun Flooding

Wed, 3 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The post-disaster period is often marked by discussions about the causes of the event and solutions to manage risk. From a policy-making perspective, disasters can act as focusing events, garnering the attention of the public and elites and creating a window of opportunity for policy change to reduce disaster risk. Narratives that circulate post-disaster are one of the crucial factors that influence the government’s decisions to respond to them. This study examines the narratives surrounding flood risk in Chiplun, Maharashtra, after the 2021 flooding by integrating the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) with the Pressure and Release Framework (PAR). Our innovative framework reveals how narratives in a post-disaster policy window direct attention to certain dimensions of risk while overlooking others and its implications for flood risk reduction. Analysis of media coverage, government reports, and stakeholder interviews revealed three dominant narratives surrounding flood risk: 1)...

REDRAWING OUR URBAN WATERS: Merging design, law, and policy in advancing distributed water systems

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Decentralized (or distributed) urban water systems managed at the local level can create, especially when created using a multidisciplinary approach, mutually reinforcing benefits for sustainability and equity, including (1) highly integrated systems for wastewater, stormwater, ground and surface water, and drinking water; (2) more resilient systems with greater adaptive capacity; (3) increased levels of ecological responsiveness; (4) more cost-effective and lower footprint infrastructure; (5) engagement with design in infrastructure development; and most importantly (6) promotion of community interests and advancement of equity goals. As demonstrated in specific case examples, urban water systems can be a laboratory for equitable and sustainable approaches when meaningful relationships between multiple disciplines are recognized and actively deployed. These approaches allow designers, communities, and policy makers to bridge the gap between policy and design, create space where...

Can Citizen Science Promote Flood Risk Communication?

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article explores the challenges facing citizen science as a means of joining the efforts of scientists and flood-risk affected stakeholders in motivating citizen involvement in identifying and mitigating flood risks. While citizen science harbors many advantages, including a penchant for collaborative research and the ability to motivate those affected by floods to work with scientists in elucidating and averting risk, it is not without challenges in its implementation. These include ensuring that scientists are willing to share authority with amateur citizen scientists, providing forums that encourage debate, and encouraging equal voice in developing flood risk mitigation strategies. We assess these challenges by noting the limited application of citizen science to flood-relevant problems in existing research and recommend future research in this area to meaningfully incorporate a “re-imagined” citizen science process that is based on the participatory theoretical framework....

To live and drink in Los Angeles

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Many cities rely on not just traditional delivery systems for potable water, but also standard economic models for valuing those systems. Both must be questioned to ensure future water security in drought-challenged urban regions.

Water and climate: Recognize anthropogenic drought

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

California's current extreme drought must be a lesson for managing water in a warmer, more densely populated world, say Amir AghaKouchak and colleagues.

The role of renter burden and affordable units at risk in city-level housing inadequacy

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

While substantial research has studied the effects of government-assisted provision of affordable housing units, little is known about the challenges that arise when the stock of affordable units is increasingly at risk due to the approaching expiration of their low-cost status. This study provides an empirical investigation of how city-level at-risk affordable units, as well as median rent and rent burden, relate to housing inadequacy using data for all cities with population greater than 5000 in the U.S. The results indicate a direct positive relationship between rent burden (relative to income) and housing inadequacy in multilevel models accounting for the county context of these cities. This positive relationship is strongest in counties with large population or high average income. Cities with higher (nominal) median rent have less housing inadequacy, particularly in counties with larger populations. Finally, the presence of more affordable units, as well as more at-risk...

Evaluating options for balancing the water-electricity nexus in California: Part 1-securingwater availability

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The technical potential and effectiveness of different water supply options for securing water availability in a large-scale, interconnected water supply system under historical and climate-change augmented inflow and demand conditions were compared. Part 1 of the study focused on determining the scale of the options required to secure water availability and compared the effectiveness of different options. A spatially and temporally resolved model of California'smajor surface reservoirs was developed, and its sensitivity to urban water conservation, desalination, and water reuse was examined. Potential capacities of the different options were determined. Under historical (baseline) hydrology conditions, many individual options were found to be capable of securing water availability alone. Under climate change augment conditions, a portfolio approach was necessary. The water savings from many individual options other than desalination were insufficient in the latter, however, relying...

The west’s water-multiple uses, conflicting values, interconnected fates

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This chapter considers the competing values that have animated western water policy. Diverse views toward exploitation and development, allocation, rights, environmental/in-stream needs, and the restoration of rivers have long characterized policy debates. We begin by examining the relative scarcity of water in the region; the drive to overcome shortages of surface water and groundwater through improvised and heavily engineered public works and law; and the encouragement-and consequences of-rapid population growth and urbanization. We then chronicle the role of irrigation boosters and their fervent belief in federally provided water as a means of encouraging self-reliant farmers. By the early twentieth century, Native American rights, environmental concerns, and fervent opposition to many interbasin diversions exacerbated issues over reserved rights and in-stream flow protection. By mid-century, these concerns became wedded to a strong preservationist ethic expressed by artists,...

FOVDA: A Federated Architecture for Overcoming Data Silos in Water Domain [Vision]

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Effective water management relies on integrating data from diverse sources, including both static and dynamic datasets. However, the challenge of data silos, especially in cities and agencies with disparate systems, has hindered progress in this domain. To address this issue, we introduce FOVDA (Federated Ontology View Data Access), an ontology-driven federated system designed to overcome data silos in the water domain. FOVDA enables seamless data integration and querying across heterogeneous data stores by leveraging a federated architecture and a domain-specific ontology. This system supports both local and global data interoperability, allowing agencies to exchange critical water-related data while maintaining data sovereignty. FOVDA’s federated query engine facilitates complex queries across distributed datasets, enabling decision-makers to access comprehensive insights for tasks such as water resource management, infrastructure resilience analysis, and disaster response....

Evaluating options for balancing the water-electricity nexus in California: Part 2-greenhouse gas and renewable energy utilization impacts

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A study was conducted to compare the technical potential and effectiveness of differentwater supply options for securing water availability in a large-scale, interconnected water supply system under historical and climatechange augmented inflow and demand conditions. Part 2 of the study focused on determining the greenhouse gas and renewable energy utilization impacts of different pathways to stabilize major surface reservoir levels. Using a detailed electric grid model and taking into account impacts on the operation of the water supply infrastructure, the greenhouse gas emissions and effect on overall grid renewable penetration level was calculated for each water supply option portfolio that successfully secured water availability from Part 1. The effects on the energy signature ofwater supply infrastructurewere found to be just as important as that of the fundamental processes for each option. Under historical (baseline) conditions, many option portfolios were capable of securing...

Public Acceptability of Water Supply Innovations

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Public Acceptability of Water Supply Innovations

From yards to cities: a simple and generalizable probabilistic framework for upscaling outdoor water conservation behavior

Wed, 30 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Outdoor watering of lawns accounts for about half of single-family residential potable water demand in the arid southwest United States. Consequently, many water utilities in the region offer customers cash rebates to replace lawns with drought tolerant landscaping. Here we present a parcel-scale analysis of water savings achieved by a 'cash-for-grass' program offered to 60 000 homes in Southern California. The probability a resident will participate in the program, and the lawn area they replace with drought tolerant landscaping, both increase with a home's outdoor area. The participation probability is also higher if a home is occupied by its owner. From these results we derive and test a simple and generalizable probabilistic framework for upscaling water conservation behavior at the parcel-scale to overall water savings at the city-or water provider-scale, accounting for the probability distribution of parcel outdoor areas across a utility's service area, climate, cultural...

Satellite-based vertical land motion for infrastructure monitoring: a prototype roadmap in Greater Houston, Texas

Wed, 4 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Coastal regions are critical hubs for industries reliant on transport and storage. However, vital infrastructure including above-ground storage tanks (ASTs), which store hazardous materials, is vulnerable to flooding and often exacerbated by subsidence (negative vertical land motion; VLM). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plays a key role in mitigating risks from ASTs. Satellite remote sensing provides a powerful tool to assess hazards and inform decision-making. Here, we present a roadmap for integrating remotely-sensed observations into decision-making frameworks. Using NASA observational products for end-users from remote sensing analysis (OPERA) VLM products derived from Sentinel-1, we map VLM at ~ 30 m resolution across Greater Houston–Galveston. Our analysis reveals widespread, spatially varying subsidence. We determine where VLM trends were linear from 2016 to 2023 and extrapolate them to estimate future VLM. Combining sea-level rise (SLR) scenarios with VLM...

Destabilized growth in world-city formation: Comparing Hong Kong and Shanghai

Wed, 21 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This study explores both the extraordinary growth processes that position a city as a leading international finance hub, and the conditions that destabilize this momentum, comparing the top two international gateway cities to the China market: Hong Kong and Shanghai during 2001–2024. We measure the presence and external connectivity of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in both cities in tandem with their internal industrial composition across sectors. We find that sharper services sector transitions translate to greater connectivity to the world economy via MNCs and structural advantages as a headquarters location, Hong Kong leading on both scores over Shanghai. We also find that Hong Kong’s historical growth has been measurably disrupted by mainland China’s authoritarian encroachment, or erosion of democratic, legal and economic freedoms. Taken together, growth processes within world-city formation favor strong services sector transitions that enable linkage to and local agglomeration...

Measuring Centrality and Power Recursively in the World City Network: A Reply to Neal

Mon, 7 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In a recent article, Zachary Neal (2011) distinguishes between centrality and power in world city networks and proposes two measures of recursive power and centrality. His effort to clarify oversimplistic interpretations of relational measures of power and position in world city networks is appreciated. However, Neal's effort to innovate methodologically is based on theoretical reasoning that is dubious when applied to world city networks. And his attempt to develop new measures is flawed since he conflates 'eigenvector centrality' with 'beta centrality' and then argues that 'eigenvector-based approaches' to recursive power and centrality are ill-suited to world city networks. The main problem is that his measures of 'recursive' centrality and power are not recursive at all and thus are of very limited utility. It is concluded that established eigenvector centrality measures used in past research (which Neal critiques) provide more useful gauges of power and centrality in world...

Globalization, the structure of the world economy and economic development

Mon, 7 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

How does the structure of the world economy determine the gains from participation therein? In order to answer this question, we conduct a state of the art network analysis of international trade to map the structure of the international division of labor (IDL). We regress cross-national variation in economic growth on positional variation and mobility of countries within the IDL from 1965 to 2000. We find that the highest rates of economic growth occurred to countries in the middle of the IDL over the course of globalization. Second, we find that upper tier positions in the IDL are converging with each other, but diverging from the lower tier. This suggests that the mechanism underlying the rapid economic growth in intermediate positions was their uniquely high rates of upward mobility, in turn a function of their middling position. Taken together, these findings suggest that a country's long-term economic development is conditioned by its position in the IDL. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.

Data technologies and analytics for policy and governance: a landscape review

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Data for Policy (dataforpolicy.org), a trans-disciplinary community of research and practice, has emerged around the application and evaluation of data technologies and analytics for policy and governance. Research in this area has involved cross-sector collaborations, but the areas of emphasis have previously been unclear. Within the Data for Policy framework of six focus areas, this report offers a landscape review of Focus Area 2: Technologies and Analytics. Taking stock of recent advancements and challenges can help shape research priorities for this community. We highlight four commonly used technologies for prediction and inference that leverage datasets from the digital environment: machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence systems, the internet-of-things, digital twins, and distributed ledger systems. We review innovations in research evaluation and discuss future directions for policy decision-making.

Supporting resolution: the impact of supervisors on workplace conflict management

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Purpose This study aims to investigate the role of supervisors in managing workplace conflict, with a focus on introducing and empirically testing a new construct called Supervisor Conflict Management Support (SCMS). The results confirm a preliminary theory of how SCMS influences conflict resolution and organizational outcomes, including contextual factors such as conflict severity and expression norms. Design/methodology/approach This study uses survey data collected from a sample of 5,123 employees within the Federal Aviation Administration who reported experiencing workplace conflict. SCMS was measured alongside organizational constructs, including organizational commitment, conflict resolution and intent to stay. Data was analyzed using hierarchical regression and moderation analyses to test hypotheses and explore contextual effects. Convergent validity was tested using exploratory principal component analyses and was confirmed via average variance extracted tests for all...

Last-mile household preparedness for future disasters: a study of flooding in Kogi State, Nigeria

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last-mile household preparedness for future disasters: a study of flooding in Kogi State, Nigeria

Dichotomy or continuum? A global review of the interaction between autonomous and planned adaptations

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Adaptation to climate change is often conceptualized as a dichotomy, with responses being either planned (formal and structured) or autonomous (organic and self-organized, often known as “everyday adaptation”). Recent literature on adaptation responses has highlighted the existence and importance of the interplay between autonomous and planned adaptation, but examination of this interaction has been limited to date. We use a global database of 1682 peer-reviewed articles on adaptation responses to systematically examine autonomous and planned adaptations, with an emphasis on how these types of adaptations interact with one another. We propose a third category, mixed adaptation, which demonstrates characteristics of both autonomous and planned types, and which recognizes nuances in how organization, external support, formality, and autonomy manifest in the fuzzy space between the two. We find that more than one-third of articles reporting on adaptation responses fall into this...

When Does It Become Overkill and Exploitation?

Tue, 4 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This essay is intended to foster reflection and action on the impact of the escalating changes in journal publication practices on our PhD students and junior colleagues. Based on our experiences and observations, we argue that journals, at least in management (first author) and marketing (second author) that accept empirical research, are demanding ever-increasing amounts of data, duplicative studies, and methodological elaborations for publication, and that these are having a detrimental impact on our PhD students, our junior colleagues and, ultimately, the future of our fields. We argue that expecting ever more work of our students and junior colleagues and not adequately weighing costs versus benefits is not fair nor professional.

Racial disparities in law enforcement/court-ordered psychiatric inpatient admissions after the 2008 recession: a test of the frustration–aggression–displacement hypothesis

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

BackgroundSocieties under duress may selectively increase the reporting of disordered persons from vulnerable communities to law enforcement. Mentally ill African American males reportedly are perceived as more threatening relative to females and other race/ethnicities. We examine whether law enforcement/court order-requested involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations increased among African American males shortly after ambient economic decline—a widely characterized population stressor.MethodsWe identified psychiatric inpatient admissions requested by law enforcement/court orders from 2006 to 2011 across four US states (Arizona, California, New York, North Carolina). Our analytic sample comprises 13.1 million psychiatric inpatient admissions across 95 counties over 72 months. We operationalized exposure to economic downturns as percent change in monthly employment in a metropolitan statistical area (MSA). We used zero inflated negative binomial and linear fixed effects regression...

Motivations for collaborative governance in China: a systematic review of the literature

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This article highlights the role of political context in shaping motivation of actors from the public sector, the private sector, and civil society to work together collaboratively. Most studies on motivations for collaborative governance come from Western, democratic contexts, and a comprehensive assessment of motivations in authoritarian contexts is missing. We bring political context in by investigating what motivates state and non-state actors to collaborate in China, a classic example of an authoritarian state. By conducting a systematic review of 264 empirical studies on collaborative governance in China published from 2006 to 2021, this paper reveals prevalent motivators including vertical commands, material-resource dependence, rules and regulations, legitimacy, economic benefits, and political resources; and uncommon motivators including asset specificity and share beliefs for both state and non-state actors in Chinese cases. We conclude by reflecting on the ways common...

Vanishing twins, selection in utero, and infant mortality in the United States

Sat, 1 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Background and Objectives: Research to identify fetal predictors of infant mortality among singletons born in the United States (US) concludes that poorly understood and unmeasured "confounders" produce a spurious association between fetal size and infant death. We argue that these confounders include Vanishing Twin Syndrome (VTS)-the clinical manifestation of selection against frail male twins in utero. We test our argument in 276 monthly conception cohorts conceived in the US from January 1995 through December 2017. Methodology: We use Box-Jenkins transfer function modeling to test the hypothesis that among infants born from 276 monthly conception cohorts conceived in the US from January 1995 through December 2017, the sex ratio of twins born in the 37th week of gestation will correlate inversely with infant mortality among singleton males born at the 40th week of gestation. Results: We find support for our hypothesis and infer that the contribution of survivors of VTS...

Epistemic maneuvers as mechanisms of environmental racism: how pesticide exposure is sustained against Mexican farmworkers

Tue, 7 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Epistemic maneuvers as mechanisms of environmental racism: how pesticide exposure is sustained against Mexican farmworkers

Forecasts of mortality and economic losses from poor water and sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa

Sat, 28 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This paper presents country-level estimates of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)-related mortality and the economic losses associated with poor access to water and sanitation infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from 1990 to 2050. We examine the extent to which the changes that accompany economic growth will "solve" water and sanitation problems in SSA and, if so, how long it will take. Our simulations suggest that WASH-related mortality will continue to differ markedly across countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In many countries, expected economic growth alone will not be sufficient to eliminate WASH-related mortality or eliminate the economic losses associated with poor access to water and sanitation infrastructure by 2050. In other countries, WASH-related mortality will sharply decline, although the economic losses associated with the time spent collecting water are forecast to persist. Overall, our findings suggest that in a subset of countries in sub-Saharan Africa...

Casino-based cash transfers and fertility among the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina: A time-series analysis

Thu, 5 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Fertility decline remains a key concern among high-income countries. Prior research indicates that income supplementation through unconditional cash transfers (UCT) may correspond with increased fertility. We examine whether a casino-based UCT, in the form of per capita (percap) payments to members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) corresponds with an acute increase in fertility. We use North Carolina vital statistics datasets from 1990 to 2006 and apply time-series analysis methods to examine the relation between specific months of percap payments (exposure) and monthly number of conceptions that result in live births (outcome) among the EBCI. We control for autocorrelation and monthly counts of births (arrayed by conception cohorts) among white women (ineligible for UCT receipt) in the study region. Results indicate an increase in conceptions that result in live births at 1 and 3 months after percap receipt among EBCI women aged ≥20 years (exposure month lag 1 coefficient...

Remote school instruction in Fall 2020 and psychiatric emergencies among adolescents in Los Angeles County

Mon, 2 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

ObjectiveSchools play an essential role in providing mental health care for adolescents. School closures during COVID-19, as well as re-opening to remote-only instruction in Fall 2020, may indirectly affect the utilization of emergency psychiatric care. We examine COVID-19-related changes in emergency psychiatric care among youth during the school closure and after school reopening (with remote instruction).MethodsWe use Box-Jenkins interrupted time series methods to analyze psychiatric emergency department (ED) visits among patients 10–19 years at LAC + USC Medical Center (LAC + USC) between January 5th, 2018, and December 31st, 2020. We control for the 1st societal shutdown in LA County (i.e., the nine weeks from March 13 to May 14, 2020) when analyzing the potential “return to remote school” shock.ResultsYouth psychiatric ED visits fell by 15.3 per week during the Spring 2020 school closure (p < .05). The “return to remote school” coefficient (i.e., August 14th to September...

Disparities in preterm birth following the July 1995 Chicago heat wave

Tue, 19 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

PURPOSE: To evaluate if changes in preterm birth (PTB, <37 weeks of gestation) incidence differed between non-Hispanic (NH) Black and NH white births following the July 1995 Chicago heat wave-among the most severe U.S. heat waves since 1950. METHODS: We used an ecologic study design. We obtained birth data from January 1990-December 1996 from the National Vital Statistics File to calculate the mean monthly PTB incidence in Chicago's Cook County, Illinois. Births between July 1995 and February 1996 were potentially exposed to the heat wave in utero. We generated time series models for NH Black and NH white births, which incorporated synthetic controls of Cook County based on unexposed counties. We ran a secondary analysis considering socioeconomic status (SES). RESULTS: From 1990-1996, the mean monthly PTB incidence among NH Black births was 18.6% compared to 7.8% among NH white births. The mean monthly PTB incidence among NH Black births from August 1995-January 1996 was...

Workforce estimate to treat mental disorders in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

BackgroundMental, neurological, and substance abuse (MNS) disorders describe a range of conditions that affect the brain and cause distress or functional impairment. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), MNS disorders make up 10.88 percent of the burden of disease as measured in disability-adjusted life years. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is one of the main providers of mental health services and one of the largest contributors to mental health research in the region. Within the past decade, mental health resources and services has increased.MethodsWe employ a needs-based workforce estimate as a planning exercise to arrive at the total number of psychiatrists, nurses, and psychosocial care providers needed to meet the epidemiological need of mental health conditions of the population of KSA. Estimates for a potential mental health workforce gap were calculated using five steps: Step 1—Quantify target population for priority mental health conditions. Step 2—Identify...

Trends in Substance Use Disorder–Related Emergency Department Visits in California: An Analysis of 46 Million Visits From 2006 to 2011

Sat, 9 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

INTRODUCTION: To better understand the development of the growing opioid crisis in the early 21st century, the authors studied trends in substance use disorder among 46,132,211 emergency department (ED) visit discharges in California between 2006 and 2011. METHODS: Utilizing the California State Emergency Department Database, the authors identified substance use based on International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision codes. Tabular and multivariable analysis methods were applied. ED visits were considered clustered at the level of patient. RESULTS: The authors observed a notable increase in substance use prevalence from 7.32 ± 6.07 to 12.21 ± 9.35 per 1000 ED visits. Nonopioid substance use was more prevalent among individuals aged ≤ 50 years old. Opioid use disorder (OUD) was associated with a higher mortality rate in the ED. In 2011, OUD was significantly higher among American Indians visiting the ED. A multivariable analysis revealed that OUD was an independent predictor...

Intergenerational effects of a casino-funded family transfer program on educational outcomes in an American Indian community

Tue, 5 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Cash transfer policies have been widely discussed as mechanisms to curb intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic disadvantage. In this paper, we take advantage of a large casino-funded family transfer program introduced in a Southeastern American Indian Tribe to generate difference-in-difference estimates of the link between children’s cash transfer exposure and third grade math and reading test scores of their offspring. Here we show greater math (0.25 standard deviation [SD], p =.0148, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 0.05, 0.45) and reading (0.28 SD, p = .0066, 95% CI: 0.08, 0.49) scores among American Indian students whose mother was exposed ten years longer than other American Indian students to the cash transfer during her childhood (or relative to the non-American Indian student referent group). Exploratory analyses find that a mother’s decision to pursue higher education and delay fertility appears to explain some, but not all, of the relation between cash transfers...

“Missing” No More: Planners Should Harness Private Developers to Build Middle Housing

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

“Missing” No More: Planners Should Harness Private Developers to Build Middle Housing

State-level regulation of disinfection byproducts in the United States

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

ABSTRACT: Disinfection byproducts (DBPs), residual compounds formed from the chemical disinfection of drinking water, can cause a host of damaging public health and environmental impacts. This study evaluates the landscape of regulations designed to reduce the occurrence and/or impact of DBPs, focusing on regulations issued by the US states. Drawing on a systematic search of state administrative codes and agency websites, we first identify the presence, absence, and layering of DBP-related regulations. We then evaluate the number and types of policy tools – the specific approaches required by each regulation, such as monitoring requirements, economic incentives, and required treatment technologies – to identify how DBPs are being managed and how states cluster with relatively more and less robust regulatory frameworks. Finally, we evaluate the relationship between the regulatory approach and the frequency of drinking water quality violations for...

Operationalizing the social capital of collaborative environmental governance with network metrics

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Social capital is frequently invoked as a reason for engaging in collaborative environmental governance. Yet we have a limited understanding of how collaborative environmental governance mobilizes different types of social capital and how the advantages and costs of social capital accrue for different groups of people. Explicit measures of social capital, such as through social network methods, will help build an understanding of how social capital facilitates collective processes and for whom. We reviewed highly cited articles in Web of Science and Scopus using ‘social capital’ as the search term to identify foundational and emergent social capital concepts. In the context of collaborative environmental governance, we operationalized these social capital concepts with network measures drawn from our expertise and highlighted existing empirical relationships between such network measures and collaborative outcomes. We identified two different perspectives on social capital—one...

Progress and gaps in climate change adaptation in coastal cities across the globe

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Progress and gaps in climate change adaptation in coastal cities across the globe

Analysing non-linearities and threshold effects between street-level built environments and local crime patterns: An interpretable machine learning approach

Wed, 9 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Despite the substantial number of studies on the relationships between crime patterns and built environments, the impacts of street-level built environments on crime patterns have not been definitively determined due to the limitations of obtaining detailed streetscape data and conventional analysis models. To fill these gaps, this study focuses on the non-linear relationships and threshold effects between built environments and local crime patterns at the level of a street segment in the City of Santa Ana, California. Using Google Street View (GSV) and semantic segmentation techniques, we quantify the features of the built environment in GSV images. Then, we examine the non-linear relationships and threshold effects between built environment factors and crime by applying interpretable machine learning (IML) methods. While the machine learning models, especially Deep Neural Network (DNN), outperformed negative binomial regression in predicting future crime events, particularly...

Vanishing twins, spared cohorts, and the birthweight of periviable infants born to Black and white women in the United States

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Pregnancies ending before 26 weeks contribute 1% of births but 40% of infant deaths in the United States. The rate of these "periviable" births to non-Hispanic (NH) Black women exceeds four times that for NH whites. Small male periviable infants remain most likely to die. NH white periviable males weigh more than their NH Black counterparts. We argue that male infants born from twin gestations, in which one fetus died in utero (i.e., the vanishing twin syndrome), contribute to the disparity. We cannot directly test our argument because "vanishing" typically occurs before clinical recognition of pregnancy. We, however, describe and find associations that would emerge in vital statistics were our argument correct. Among male periviable singleton births from 288 monthly conception cohorts (January 1995 through December 2018), we found an average NH white advantage of 30 grams (759 grams versus 729 grams). Consistent with our argument, however, cohorts signaling relatively few survivors...

Progress and gaps in climate change adaptation in coastal cities across the globe

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract

Coastal cities are at the frontlines of climate change impacts, resulting in an urgent need for substantial adaptation. To understand whether and to what extent cities are on track to prepare for climate risks, this paper systematically assesses the academic literature to evaluate climate change adaptation in 199 coastal cities worldwide. We show that adaptation in coastal cities is rather slow, of narrow scope, and not transformative. Adaptation measures are predominantly designed based on past and current, rather than future, patterns in hazards, exposure, and vulnerability. City governments, particularly in high-income countries, are more likely to implement institutional and infrastructural responses, while coastal cities in lower-middle income countries often rely on households to implement behavioral adaptation. There is comparatively little published knowledge on coastal urban adaptation in low and middle income economies and regarding particular adaptation...

Polycentric Governance

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Polycentric Governance

Toilet construction under the Swachh Bharat Mission and infant mortality in India

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Improvement of water and sanitation conditions may reduce infant mortality, particularly in countries like India where open defecation is highly prevalent. We conducted a quasi-experimental study to investigate the association between the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM)—a national sanitation program initiated in 2014—and infant (IMR) and under five mortality rates (U5MR) in India. We analyzed data from thirty-five Indian states and 640 districts spanning 10 years (2011–2020), with IMR and U5MR per thousand live births as the outcomes. Our main exposure was the district-level annual percentage of households that received a constructed toilet under SBM. We mapped changes in IMR and U5MR and toilet access at the district level over time. We fit two-way fixed effects regression models controlling for sociodemographic, wealth, and healthcare-related confounders at the district-level to estimate the association between toilets constructed and child mortality. Toilet access and child...

Des transitions injustes vers le charbon et l’hydroélectricité en Inde

Tue, 17 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

En Inde, les transitions énergétiques vers le charbon et l’hydroélectricité exercent une pression sur les ressources naturelles qui affecte gravement les communautés marginalisées, en particulier autochtones. Le modèle libéral de la transition « juste », centré sur la consultation et la participation des « parties prenantes », légitime en réalité les processus d’expropriation en ce qu’il ignore les asymétries et les violences d’État.

Navigating justice: Examining the intersection of procedural and distributive justice in environmental impact assessment in Puerto Rico

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Recognizing that centuries of mistreatment of low-income and minority communities by governments and corporations have resulted in widespread exposure to environmental harms, academics and policymakers are seeking ways to improve environmental justice. While it is commonly assumed that improved procedural justice (meaningful participation in decision making) should improve distributive justice (equitable distribution of environmental harms and benefits), empirical evidence of this link is nascent. This paper evaluates whether differing approaches to procedural justice shape recognition of distributive injustices by policymakers, focusing on implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in Puerto Rico. NEPA requires federal agencies to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of projects they implement, fund, or permit; this review commonly includes an assessment of the project's impacts on distributive justice. Drawing on document analysis and interviews with...

Water-COLOR: Water-COnservation using a Learning-based Optimized Recommender

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Efficient water use, particularly in the realm of irrigation, has emerged as a critical concern in regions suffering from persistent drought, such as California and Florida. With the advent of smart irrigation controllers encouraged by environmental policies, a new paradigm of water management is gaining traction. Among these, the Rachio smart controller has garnered significant attention. However, without direct feedback or actual water usage data, optimizing these irrigation systems for enhanced efficiency remains challenging. This paper introduces Water-COLOR, a novel recommendation system integrated within the Rachio smart controller's framework to address this challenge. The system leverages similar landscape profiles to suggest irrigation schedules that are both water-efficient and user-preferable. By analyzing manual user interactions with the controller, Water-COLOR infers user satisfaction, which, along with estimated water usage, informs the adaptation of irrigation...

Ecosystem service values support conservation and sustainable land development: Perspectives from four University of California campuses

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Urban landscapes homogenize our world at global scales, contributing to “extinction of experience”, a progressive decline in human interactions with native greenspace that can disconnect people from the services it provides. College age adults report feeling disconnected from nature more than other demographics, making universities a logical place to explore interventions intended to restore a connection with nature. This study surveyed 1088 students and staff across four university campus communities in Southern California, USA and used multicriteria decision analysis to explore their landscape preferences and the implications of those preferences for combatting extinction of experience. Our results suggest that perspectives of, and preferences for, different greenspace forms vary significantly (i.e., they are not perceived as substitutable). Support for native ecosystems, particularly coastal sage scrub (top ranked landscape) was generally high, suggesting that disaffection...

How urban form impacts flooding

Mon, 9 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Urbanization and climate change are contributing to severe flooding globally, damaging infrastructure, disrupting economies, and undermining human well-being. Approaches to make cities more resilient to floods are emerging, notably with the design of flood-resilient structures, but relatively little is known about the role of urban form and its complexity in the concentration of flooding. We leverage statistical mechanics to reduce the complexity of urban flooding and develop a mean-flow theory that relates flood hazards to urban form characterized by the ground slope, urban porosity, and the Mermin order parameter which measures symmetry in building arrangements. The mean-flow theory presents a dimensionless flood depth that scales linearly with the urban porosity and the order parameter, with different scaling for disordered square- and hexagon-like forms. A universal scaling is obtained by introducing an effective mean chord length representative of the unobstructed downslope...

Water and climate: Recognize anthropogenic drought

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Water and climate: Recognize anthropogenic drought

Mesenchymal Precursor Cells as Adjunctive Therapy in Recipients of Contemporary Left Ventricular Assist Devices

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

BACKGROUND: Allogeneic mesenchymal precursor cells (MPCs) injected during left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation may contribute to myocardial recovery. This trial explores the safety and efficacy of this strategy. METHODS AND RESULTS: In this multicenter, double-blind, sham-procedure controlled trial, 30 patients were randomized (2:1) to intramyocardial injection of 25 million MPCs or medium during LVAD implantation. The primary safety end point was incidence of infectious myocarditis, myocardial rupture, neoplasm, hypersensitivity reaction, and immune sensitization (90 days after randomization). Key efficacy end points were functional status and ventricular function while temporarily weaned from LVAD support (90 days after randomization). Patients were followed up until transplant or 12 months after randomization, whichever came first. Mean age was 57.4 (±13.6) years, mean left ventricular ejection fraction was 18.1%, and 66.7% were destination therapy LVADs. No safety...

Matrix Signaling Subsequent to a Myocardial Infarction A Proteomic Profile of Tissue Factor Microparticles

Thu, 18 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This study investigated the release and proteomic profile of tissue factor microparticles (TFMPs) prospectively (up to 6 months) following a myocardial infarction (MI) in a chronic porcine model to establish their utility in tracking cellular level activities that predict physiologic outcomes. Our animal groups (n = 6 to 8 each) consisted of control, noninfarcted (negative control); infarcted only (positive control); and infarcted animals treated with cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) and a β-blocker (BB) (metoprolol succinate). The authors found different protein profiles in TFMPs between the control, infarcted only group, and the CRT + BB treated group with predictive impact on the outward phenotype of pathological remodeling after an MI within and between groups. This novel approach of monitoring cellular level activities by profiling the content of TFMPs has the potential of addressing a shortfall of the current crop of cardiac biomarkers, which is the...

Exploring variations in local land use regulations in the U.S.: What matters and at what level?

Sat, 22 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

While the geography of land use control is shaped by various forces operating at multiple levels, how land use is regulated in the U.S. has been examined with a narrow focus on either intraregional variation (within a single region) or aggregate differences between regions. This article presents an investigation of the geographical distribution of land use control with explicit consideration of both local and regional factors. Using data from two nation-wide surveys and other sources of information, it shows that substantial variation exists not only between regions but also within regions, calling for more attention to what matters and at what level. It is also found that the multilevel determinants of land use regulations are not uniform across regulation types. While low-density zoning is largely determined by local factors with limited interregional variation, a higher level of heterogeneity between regions is detected for impact fees and affordable housing requirements.

Economic downturns and male cesarean deliveries: a time-series test of the economic stress hypothesis

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

BackgroundIn light of the recent Great Recession, increasing attention has focused on the health consequences of economic downturns. The perinatal literature does not converge on whether ambient economic declines threaten the health of cohorts in gestation. We set out to test the economic stress hypothesis that the monthly count of cesarean deliveries (CD), which may gauge the level of fetal distress in a population, rises after the economy declines. We focus on male CD since the literature reports that male more than female fetuses appear sensitive to stressors in utero.MethodsWe tested our ecological hypothesis in California for 228 months from January 1989 to December 2007, the most recent data available to us at the time of our tests. We used as the independent variable the Bureau of Labor Statistics unadjusted total state employment series. Time-series methods controlled for patterns of male CD over time. We also adjusted for the monthly count of female CD, which controls...

State-Level Education Standards for Substance Use Prevention Programs in Schools: A Systematic Content Analysis

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

PURPOSE: Three fourths of public schools in the United States maintain instructional programs to discourage alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use. State-sanctioned instructional standards attempt to direct this ATOD preventive education. No existing research, however, systematically codes these standards across all grades and states. We performed such an analysis. METHODS: We retrieved ATOD standards information from all 50 states and the District of Columbia from multiple sources, including the National Association of State Boards of Education's State School Health Policy Web site. Three independent researchers classified and cross-validated ATOD standards (inter-rater agreement = 98%) based on recommended content domains and pedagogic delivery methods. RESULTS: We find substantial grade-level variation in standards. Elementary schools emphasize generic social skills and affective skills, whereas middle and high school standards focus on knowledge about biological and behavioral...

Depression, Suicidal Ideation, and Suicidal Attempt Presenting to the Emergency Department: Differences Between These Cohorts

Sun, 16 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

INTRODUCTION: The World Health Organization estimates that one million people die by suicide every year. Few studies have looked at factors associated with disposition in patients with chief complaints of depression, suicidal ideation (SI) and suicidal attempts (SA) who present to the emergency department (ED). Our objective was to assess individual determinants associated with ED disposition of patients in depressed patients presenting to the ED. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study using the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey from 2006 to 2008. We used logistic regression to identify factors associated with discharge, in SI, SA and depression patients. Independent variables included socio-demographic information, vital signs, mode of arrival, insurance status, place of residence and concomitant psychiatric diagnosis. RESULTS: Of the 93,030 subjects, 2,314 met the inclusion criteria (1,362 depression, 353 SI and 599 SA). Patients who arrived by ambulance...

Topographic hydro-conditioning to resolve surface depression storage and ponding in a fully distributed hydrologic model

Tue, 4 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Land surface depressions play a central role in the transformation of rainfall to ponding, infiltration and runoff, yet digital elevation models (DEMs) used by spatially distributed hydrologic models that resolve land surface processes rarely capture land surface depressions at spatial scales relevant to this transformation. Methods to generate DEMs through processing of remote sensing data, such as optical and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) have favored surfaces without depressions to avoid adverse slopes that are problematic for many hydrologic routing methods. Here we present a new topographic conditioning workflow, Depression-Preserved DEM Processing (D2P) algorithm, which is designed to preserve physically meaningful surface depressions for depression-integrated and efficient hydrologic modeling. D2P includes several features: (1) an adaptive screening interval for delineation of depressions, (2) the ability to filter out anthropogenic land surface features (e.g., bridges),...

A content analysis of social media discourse during Hurricane María: filling a void when traditional media are silent

Wed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As social media is increasingly used by communities to understand and cope with environmental hazards, understanding how people use social media before, during, and after disasters can support disaster response and recovery efforts. This paper presents an empirical application of Houston et al.’s (Disasters 39:1–22, 2015) functional framework for disaster social media, using the case of Twitter use during and after Hurricane María. Our research aims to (1) identify the predominant patterns of Twitter usage and content dissemination during the Hurricane María crisis and (2) validate and refine the functional framework for disaster social media with a case study of the hurricane that hit Puerto Rico in 2017. We find that people in the US used Twitter mainly to access news of the hurricane, express emotions (both negative and positive), and to understand socio-political events shaping the response and recovery. Most tweets came from individuals rather than organizations, and most...

The Political Economy of Trade, Work and Economy: De-globalization – or Re-globalization?

Wed, 8 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

What forces will shape the global future? We begin with discussion of the central roles of globalization and the ecologically destructive Anthropocene and then move onto more current popular and political debates about questions of unchallengeable globalization versus de-globalization and re-globalization. We side with the former. The broad story is how historical global capitalism, with different leading core states or hegemons, inexorably pushed global society into an increasingly tight related connected world-economy, meshed together by commodity webs and supply chains that linked increasingly far-flung locations, geologies, landscapes, and ecosystems. The vision is one of a world-system, embedded to a large degree on market and nation-state capitalism and political power, conflict, and cooperation, that grows more and more tightly integrated, spatially widespread, and ecologically destructive as it expanded for six hundred years. We disagree with a fundamental "break"from...

New York City’s Stop, Question, and Frisk Policy and Psychiatric Emergencies among Black Americans

Tue, 9 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Under the Stop, Question, and Frisk (SQF) policy, New York City (NYC) police stopped Black Americans at more than twice the rate of non-Hispanic whites, after controlling for arrests and precinct differences. We examined whether police stops of Black Americans during SQF correspond positively with psychiatric emergency department (ED) visits among Black residents in NYC. We utilized as the exposure all police stops, stops including frisking, and stops including use of force among Black Americans in NYC between 2006 and 2015 from the New York City Police Department’s New York City—Stop, Question, and Frisk database. We examined 938,356 outpatient psychiatric ED visits among Black Americans in NYC between 2006 and 2015 from the Statewide Emergency Department Database (SEDD). We applied Box-Jenkins time-series methods to control for monthly temporal patterns. Results indicate that all stops, frisking, and use of force of Black residents correspond with increased psychiatric ED visits...

Missing Black males among preterm births in the US, 1995 to 2019

Mon, 1 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

BACKGROUND: In the US, non-Hispanic (NH) Black birthing persons show a two-fold greater risk of fetal death relative to NH white birthing persons. Since males more than females show a greater risk of fetal death, such loss in utero may affect the sex composition of live births born preterm (PTB; <37 weeks gestational age). We examine US birth data from 1995 to 2019 to determine whether the ratio of male to female preterm (i.e., PTB sex ratios) among NH Black births falls below that of NH whites and Hispanics. METHODS: We acquired data on all live births in the US from January 1995 to December 2019. We arrayed 63 million live births into 293 "conception cohort" months of which 2,475,928 NH Black, 5,746,953 NH white, and 2,511,450 Hispanic infants were PTB. We used linear regression methods to identify trend and seasonal patterns in PTB sex ratios. We also examined subgroup differences in PTB sex ratios (e.g., advanced maternal ages, twin gestations, and narrower gestational...

Labor organizing at chokepoints along Amazon’s supply chain: Locating geo-strategic nodes

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Amazon seems to be creating a new hybrid model of capitalism combining some elements of classical Fordist vertical integration, or even the over hundred-year-old “Taylorism” of scientific management, with 21st century elements of labor “flexibility” and reliance on gig labor and subcontracting. This hybrid model offers opportunities for organized labor to gain a foothold within some of Amazon’s vertically integrated nodes as the firm lengthens its corporate commodity chain to grow increasingly close to consumers. Building on earlier work on opportunities for, and constraints on, labor in a variety of global commodity chains, our empirical cases examine how Amazon’s corporate strategies may open opportunities for labor in three illustrative cases ensconced in fulfillment centers—the Fordist vertical integration side of the model—in the Inland Empire and Otay Mesa (both in southern California) and Northern Kentucky.

Selection in utero against male twins in the United States early in the COVID‐19 pandemic

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

OBJECTIVES: We aim to contribute to the literature reporting tests of selection in utero. The theory of reproductive suppression predicts that natural selection would conserve mechanisms, referred to collectively as selection in utero, that spontaneously abort fetuses unlikely to thrive as infants in the prevailing environment. Tests of this prediction include reports that women give birth to fewer than expected male twins, historically among the frailest of infants, during stressful times. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States in Spring 2020 demonstrably stressed the population. We test the hypothesis that conception cohorts in gestation at the onset of the pandemic in the United States yielded fewer than expected live male twin births. METHODS: We retrieved deidentified data on the universe of live births in the United States from the National Center for Health Statistics birth certificate records. We applied Box-Jenkins time-series methods to the twin secondary...

Complex adaptive systems-based framework for modeling the health impacts of climate change

Wed, 6 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction: Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, and its impact on human health is a growing concern. The intricate interplay of various factors makes it challenging to accurately predict and understand the implications of climate change on human well-being. Conventional methodologies have limitations in comprehensively addressing the complexity and nonlinearity inherent in the relationships between climate change and health outcomes. Objectives: The primary objective of this paper is to develop a robust theoretical framework that can effectively analyze and interpret the intricate web of variables influencing the human health impacts of climate change. By doing so, we aim to overcome the limitations of conventional approaches and provide a more nuanced understanding of the complex relationships involved. Furthermore, we seek to explore practical applications of this theoretical framework to enhance our ability to predict, mitigate, and adapt...

Family cash transfers in childhood and birthing persons and birth outcomes later in life

Wed, 6 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Much literature in the US documents an intergenerational transmission of birthing person and perinatal morbidity in socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. A separate line of work indicates that family cash transfers may improve life chances of low-income families well into adulthood. By exploiting a quasi-random natural experiment of a large family cash transfer among a southeastern American Indian (AI) tribe in rural North Carolina, we examine whether a "perturbation" in socioeconomic status during childhood improves birthing person/perinatal outcomes when they become parents themselves. We acquired birth records on 6805 AI and non-AI infants born from 1995 to 2018. Regression methods to examine effect modification tested whether the birthing person's American Indian (AI) status and exposure to the family cash transfer during their childhood years corresponds with improvements in birthing person and perinatal outcomes. Findings show an increase in age at childbearing (coef:...

Violent transitions: towards a political ecology of coal and hydropower in India

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The concept of just transition is often defined as a process of including particular kinds of fossil fuel workers in the transition towards low-carbon energy. Missing from such liberal framings of just transitions is an engagement with how the extraction of both fossil fuels and low-carbon energy is contingent upon state violence and the expropriation of Indigenous and frontline communities’ lands. In contrast to liberal framings of just transition that focus on the inclusion of fossil fuel workers as stakeholders, this article calls for an investigation of ‘violent transitions’, which refers to the ways in which the expansion of fossil fuel and low-carbon energy infrastructures are predicated upon direct state-sanctioned violence–including the criminalization of dissent, protests, and mass mobilization through police violence and arrests–to facilitate processes of land expropriation. Drawing upon a comparative analysis of 121 coal and hydropower projects in India, the article...

Do employment centers matter? Consequences for commuting distance in the Los Angeles region, 2002–2019

Fri, 2 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The presence of employment centers provides the potential for reducing commuting distance. However, employment centers have distinct attributes, which may lead to varied impacts on commuting outcomes. We examine how proximity to employment centers can influence commuting distance with consideration of the heterogeneity of employment centers and workers. Specifically, we consider various attributes of employment centers related to location, persistency, job density, industry diversity, and size and analyze their impacts on the commuting patterns of low- and high-income workers using panel (2002-2019) data. Our analysis of the Los Angeles region shows that increasing proximity to the nearest employment center decreases commuting distance even after controlling for the job attributes located in the neighborhood of workers. The results further suggest that employment centers are not equal in terms of their impact on commute distance and that their impact is different for commuters...

A conversation with Manuel Castells

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A conversation with Manuel Castells

Job loss and fetal growth restriction: identification of critical trimesters of exposure.

Sat, 16 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

PURPOSE: Previous research suggests that job loss in a household during pregnancy may perturb fetal growth. However, this work often cannot rule out unmeasured confounding due to selection into job loss. Recent work using data on exogenous job loss (due to a plant closure) finds that a fathers unexpected job loss during his spouses pregnancy increases the risk of a low weight birth. Using a unique set of linked registries in Denmark, we build on this work and examine whether associations between a fathers unexpected job loss and low birthweight differ by trimester of in utero exposure. We additionally examine trimester-specific associations of job loss with small-for-gestational-age, a proxy for restricted fetal growth, which may cause low birthweight. METHODS: We apply a sibling control design to over 1.4 million live births in Denmark, 1980 to 2017, to examine whether this plausibly exogenous form of job loss corresponds with increased risk of low weight or small-for-gestational-age...

Cannabis Vape Product Sales in California Following CDC's Initial Advisory About Lung Injuries

Wed, 6 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction: The 2019 outbreak of e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) is believed to have been caused by vitamin E acetate, an additive used in some cannabis vaporizer products. Previous studies have primarily focused on changes in sales of electronic nicotine delivery systems following the initial advisory issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on August 17, 2019. The present study is intended to examine variation by age groups in sales of regulated cannabis vape products in the state of California before, during, and after the outbreak. Methods: Weekly sales revenue of cannabis vape products (from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2020) was obtained from a sample of recreational cannabis retailers licensed in California. An interrupted time series analysis, using AutoRegressive, Integrated, Moving Average methods, was employed to estimate changes in the sales and market share of cannabis vape products in the weeks following...

Overseeing Infill

Wed, 8 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Several U.S. states with high housing costs have recently adopted laws intended to promote infill development. These new laws expand state agencies’ supervisory responsibilities to ensure that local governments comply with state mandates. Effective administration of these laws will require state agencies to accurately estimate the amount of new housing that might be created and to target review to the jurisdictions that are failing to meet the relevant requirements. Here we present quantitative tools both for prioritizing review of local plans and zoning ordinances and for estimating future housing development. We applied the tools to the implementation of California laws requiring local governments to amend their zoning ordinances to allow accessory dwelling units on parcels zoned for detached single-family housing development. We provide computer code, written in the open-source statistical computing language R, that implements these...

Antidepressant Prescription Behavior Among Primary Care Clinician Providers After an Interprofessional Primary Care Psychiatric Training Program

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Primary care providers (PCPs) are increasingly called upon to screen for and treat depression. However, PCPs often lack the training to diagnose and treat depression. We designed an innovative 12-month evidence and mentorship-based primary care psychiatric training program entitled the University of California, Irvine (UCI) School of Medicine Train New Trainers Primary Care Psychiatry (TNT PCP) Fellowship and examined whether this training impacted clinician prescription rates for antidepressants. We retrieved information on 18,844 patients and 192 PCPs from a publicly insured health program in Southern California receiving care between 2017 and 2021. Of the 192 PCPs, 42 received TNT training and 150 did not. We considered a patient as exposed to the provider’s TNT treatment if they received care from a provider after the provider completed the 1-year fellowship. We utilized the number of antidepressant prescriptions per patient, per quarter-year as the dependent variable....

Where Will Accessory Dwelling Units Sprout Up When a State Lets Them Grow? Evidence From California

Mon, 9 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Where Will Accessory Dwelling Units Sprout Up When a State Lets Them Grow? Evidence From California

Trade Wars and Disrupted Global Commodity Chains: Hallmarks of the Breakdown of the U.S. World Order and a New Era of Competition and Conflict?

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The literatures on global commodity chains and global value chains rest on an unquestioned assumption: the continual expansion of globalization. The Trump Administration's trade wars challenged this foundational assumption and even today the new Biden regime also hints at the shift away from global supply chains. We find that the prior administration’s efforts caused continued disruption of long-established commodity chains in steel, aluminum, automobiles, and other manufactured products. Flows of raw materials, intermediate products and components, and finished goods now confront higher costs. Firms continue efforts to restructure commodity chains in ways that will require the disarticulation of some nodes and the creation of new nodes. We claim that these trade wars and breakdown of global commodity chains (GCCs) may in fact mark the start of the breakdown of the U.S.-led world order. This shift harkens the onset of a new era of economic and geopolitical conflict. A key question:...

Trade Wars and Disrupted Global Commodity Chains: Hallmarks of the Breakdown of the U.S. World Order and a New Era of Competition and Conflict?

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Compounding effects of sea level rise and fluvial flooding

Tue, 19 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Sea level rise (SLR), a well-documented and urgent aspect of anthropogenic global warming, threatens population and assets located in low-lying coastal regions all around the world. Common flood hazard assessment practices typically account for one driver at a time (e.g., either fluvial flooding only or ocean flooding only), whereas coastal cities vulnerable to SLR are at risk for flooding from multiple drivers (e.g., extreme coastal high tide, storm surge, and river flow). Here, we propose a bivariate flood hazard assessment approach that accounts for compound flooding from river flow and coastal water level, and we show that a univariate approach may not appropriately characterize the flood hazard if there are compounding effects. Using copulas and bivariate dependence analysis, we also quantify the increases in failure probabilities for 2030 and 2050 caused by SLR under representative concentration pathways 4.5 and 8.5. Additionally, the increase in failure probability is shown...

Global Health Workforce Labor Market Projections for 2030

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

BackgroundIn low- and middle-income countries, scaling essential health interventions to achieve health development targets is constrained by the lack of skilled health professionals to deliver services.MethodsWe take a labor market approach to project future health workforce demand based on an economic model based on projected economic growth, demographics, and health coverage, and using health workforce data (1990–2013) for 165 countries from the WHO Global Health Observatory. The demand projections are compared with the projected growth in health worker supply and the health worker “needs” as estimated by WHO to achieve essential health coverage.ResultsThe model predicts that, by 2030, global demand for health workers will rise to 80 million workers, double the current (2013) stock of health workers, while the supply of health workers is expected to reach 65 million over the same period, resulting in a worldwide net shortage of 15 million health workers. Growth in the demand...

A multicriteria decision analysis framework to measure equitable healthcare access during COVID-19

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the need for individuals to have easy access to healthcare facilities for treatment as well as vaccinations. The surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations during 2020 also underscored the fact that accessibility to nearby hospitals for testing, treatment and vaccination sites is crucial for patients with fever or respiratory symptoms. Although necessary, quantifying healthcare access is challenging as it depends on a complex interaction between underlying socioeconomic and physical factors. In this case study, we deployed a Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) approach to uncover the barriers and their effect on healthcare access. Using a least cost path (LCP) analysis we quantified the costs associated with healthcare access from each census block group in the Los Angeles metropolitan area (LA Metro) to the nearest hospital. Social vulnerability reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the...

Correcting Bias in Crowdsourced Data to Map Bicycle Ridership of All Bicyclists

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Traditional methods of counting bicyclists are resource-intensive and generate data with sparse spatial and temporal detail. Previous research suggests big data from crowdsourced fitness apps offer a new source of bicycling data with high spatial and temporal resolution. However, crowdsourced bicycling data are biased as they oversample recreational riders. Our goals are to quantify geographical variables, which can help in correcting bias in crowdsourced, data and to develop a generalized method to correct bias in big crowdsourced data on bicycle ridership in different settings in order to generate maps for cities representative of all bicyclists at a street-level spatial resolution. We used street-level ridership data for 2016 from a crowdsourced fitness app (Strava), geographical covariate data, and official counts from 44 locations across Maricopa County, Arizona, USA (training data); and 60 locations from the city of Tempe, within Maricopa (test data). First, we quantified...

Examining spatial disparities in electric vehicle charging station placements using machine learning

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Electric vehicles (EV) are an emerging mode of transportation that has the potential to reshape the transportation sector by significantly reducing carbon emissions thereby promoting a cleaner environment and pushing the boundaries of climate progress. Nevertheless, there remain significant hurdles to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles in the United States ranging from the high cost of EVs to the inequitable placement of EV charging stations (EVCS). A deeper understanding of the underlying complex interactions of social, economic, and demographic factors which may lead to such emerging disparities in EVCS placements is, therefore, necessary to mitigate accessibility issues and improve EV usage among people of all ages and abilities. In this study, we develop a machine learning framework to examine spatial disparities in EVCS placements by using a predictive approach. We first identify the essential socioeconomic factors that may contribute to spatial disparities in EVCS...

Functional data analysis approach for mapping change in time series: A case study using bicycle ridership patterns

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Monitoring change is an important aspect of understanding variations in spatial–temporal processes. Recently, 'big data' on mobility, which are detailed across space and time, have become increasingly available from crowdsourced platforms. New methods are needed to best utilize the high spatial and temporal resolution of such data for monitoring purposes. These data can be considered mappable time series but are challenging to use owing to varying sampling rates and issues of temporal misalignment. We present a methodological framework for change detection from big data captured by crowdsourced fitness app Strava, which addresses misalignment issues in the underlying ridership patterns and maps temporal clusters of bicycling ridership change in the city of Phoenix, AZ between 2017 and 2018 at the street-segment level. Hourly and monthly changes were classified into four clusters for each time period - mapped along with crash density to highlight variations in bicycling ridership....

Bicycle streetscapes: a data driven approach to mapping streets based on bicycle usage

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Cities are making infrastructure investments to make travel by bicycle safer and more attractive. A challenge for promoting bicycling is effectively using data to support decision making and ensuring that data represent all communities. However, ecologists have been addressing a similar type of question for decades and have developed an approach to stratifying landscapes based on ecozones or areas with homogenous ecology. Our goal is to classify street and path segments and map streetscape categories by applying ecological classification methods to diverse spatial data on the built environment, communities, and bicycling. Piloted in Ottawa, Canada, we use GIS data on the built environment, socioeconomics and demographics of neighborhoods, and bicycling infrastructure, behavior, and safety, and apply a k-means clustering algorithm. Each street or path, an intuitive spatial unit that reflects lived experience in cities, is assigned a streetscape category: bicycling destination;...

A novel indicator of selection in utero

Sat, 9 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Background and objectives: Selection in utero predicts that population stressors raise the standard for how quickly fetuses must grow to avoid spontaneous abortion. Tests of this prediction must use indirect indicators of fetal loss in birth cohorts because vital statistics systems typically register fetal deaths at the 20th week of gestation or later, well after most have occurred. We argue that tests of selection in utero would make greater progress if researchers adopted an indicator of selection against slow-growing fetuses that followed from theory, allowed sex-specific tests and used readily available data. We propose such an indicator and assess its validity as a dependent variable by comparing its values among monthly birth cohorts before, and during, the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden. Methodology: We apply Box-Jenkins methods to 50 pre-pandemic birth cohorts (i.e., December 2016 through January 2020) and use the resulting transfer functions...

A novel approach to estimate the impact of health workforce investments on health outcomes through increased coverage of HIV, TB and malaria services

Tue, 5 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

BackgroundGlobally, HIV, TB and malaria account for an estimated three million deaths annually. The Global Fund partnered with the World Health Organization to assist countries with health workforce planning in these areas through the development of an integrated health workforce investment impact tool. Our study illustrates the development of a user-friendly tool (with two MS Excel calculator subcomponents) that computes associations between human resources for health (HRH) investment inputs and reduced morbidity and mortality from HIV, TB, and malaria via increased coverage of effective treatment services.MethodsWe retrieved from the peer-reviewed literature quantitative estimates of the relation among HRH inputs and HRH employment and productivity. We converted these values to additional full-time-equivalent doctors, nurses and midwives (DNMs). We used log-linear regression to estimate the relation between DNMs and treatment service coverage outcomes for HIV, TB, and malaria....

Permissiveness of firearm laws, pro-gun culture, and suicides by firearm in the U.S., 2000–2016