ITS Berkeley

Urban Scaling of Health Outcomes: A Protocol for a Scoping Review

McCulley, EM
Mullachery, PH
Rodriguez, D
Roux, AV Diez
Bilal, U
2019

With most of the world’s population living in urban areas, it is important to understand the health effects of city living. Precise descriptions of the relations of city size and growth with population health metrics have not been systematically described. Describing these relationships can provide clues regarding the factors driving differences in health across cities. Objective The goal of this scoping review is to map the existing evidence regarding the scaling properties of health outcomes, with a special emphasis on city size and growth. Method and analysis We will conduct this...

Determinants of Residential Preferences Related to Built and Social Environments and Concordance Between Neighborhood Characteristics and Preferences

Li, Y
Auchincloss, AH
Rodriguez, DA
Moore, K
Roux, AV Diez
Sanchez, B
2019

We explored associations between residential preferences and sociodemographic characteristics, the concordance between current neighborhood characteristics and residential preferences, and heterogeneity in concordance by income and race/ethnicity. Data came from a cross-sectional phone and mail survey of 3668 residents of New York City, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Paul, and Winston Salem in 2011–12. Scales characterized residential preferences and neighborhood characteristics. Stronger preferences were associated with being older, female, non-White/non-Hispanic, and lower...

The Effect of Compressibility on the Primary Global Instability of Unforced Laminar Separation Bubbles

Gennaro, EM
Souza, BDP
Rodriguez, D
2019

Laminar separation bubbles present a three-dimensional self-excited instability mechanism which leads to the appearance of spanwise-periodic structures. In incompressible flow, this mechanism was found to become active at conditions in which wave-like, two-dimensional perturbations are only convectively unstable. In the absence of continuous external excitation, the three-dimensional instability is expected to dominate the flow dynamics and initiate the laminar-turbulent transition. This work extends previous analyses by incorporating the effect of compressibility at subsonic...

Inequalities in Life Expectancy in Six Large Latin American Cities from the SALURBAL Study: An Ecological Analysis

Bilal, U
Alazraqui, M
Caiaffa, WT
Lopez-Olmedo, N
Martinez-Folgar, K
Miranda, J
Rodriguez, D
Vives, A
Roux, AV Diez
2019
Latin America is one of the most unequal regions in the world, but evidence is lacking on the magnitude of health inequalities in urban areas of the region. Our objective was to examine inequalities in life expectancy in six large Latin American cities and its association with a measure of area-level socioeconomic status. In this ecological analysis, we used data from the Salud Urbana en America Latina (SALURBAL) study on six large cities in Latin America (Buenos Aires, Argentina; Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; San José, Costa Rica; Mexico City, Mexico; and Panama City, Panama),...

Assessing Google Street View Image Availability in Latin American Cities

Fry, D
Mooney, SJ
Rodriguez, D
Caiaffa, WT
Lovasi, GS
2020

Virtual audits using Google Street View are an increasingly popular method of assessing neighborhood environments for health and urban planning research. However, the validity of these studies may be threatened by issues of image availability, image age, and variance of image age, particularly in the Global South. This study identifies patterns of Street View image availability, image age, and image age variance across cities in Latin America and assesses relationships between these measures and measures of resident socioeconomic conditions. Image availability was assessed at 530,308...

Navigating the Many Hurdles in Creating a Self-Report Measure

Rodriguez, D
2020

The purpose of this case study is to provide insight into the process of designing and testing a self-report measure to assess self-concept related to combustible cigarette smoking. The subjective importance of smoking (SIMS) measure was tested in three different samples in two countries. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were employed at various stages, and a newer method, exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) at the final stage. Although it was a pleasure to finally see the publication in print, the reciprocal interweaving between joy and...

Análise da Transferência da Energia Entre o Escoamento Base e os Modos globais de uma Bolha de Separação Laminar

Romano, AC
Gennaro, EM
Rodríguez, DA
2020

A transição do escoamento do regime laminar ao turbulento está geralmente associada com instabilidades do escoamento laminar de referência. Pequenas perturbações crescem em amplitude, extraem energia do escoamento médio, e geram estruturas de amplitudes finitas que iniciam, através de interações não lineares, o processo de transição.

GIS-based Home Neighborhood Food Outlet Counts, Street Connectivity, and Frequency of Use of Neighborhood Restaurants and Food Stores

Peng, K
Rodriguez, DA
Peterson, M
Braun,
Howard, AG
Lewis, CE
Shikany, J
Gordon-Larsen, P
2020

Researchers have linked neighborhood food availability to the overall frequency of using food outlets without noting if those outlets were within or outside of participants’ neighborhoods. We aimed to examine the association of neighborhood restaurant and food store availability with frequency of use of neighborhood food outlets, and whether such an association was modified by neighborhood street connectivity using a large and diverse population-based cohort of middle-aged U.S. adults. We used self-reported frequency of use of fast food restaurants, sit-down restaurants, and grocery...

Urban Transformations and Health: Methods for TrUST—A Natural Experiment Evaluating the Impacts of a Mass Transit Cable Car in Bogotá, Colombia

Sarmiento, O
Higuera-Mendieta, D
Wilches-Mogollon, MA
Guzman, L
Rodriguez, D
Morales, R
Bedoya, C
Linares-Vasquez
Arevalo, M
Martinez-Herrera, E
Montes, F
Meisel, JD
Useche, A
Garcia, E
Triana, C
Medaglia, AL
Hessel, P
Arellana, J
Moncada, C
King, A
Roux, AV Diez
2020

Cable cars provide urban mobility benefits for vulnerable populations. However, no evaluation has assessed cable cars' impact from a health perspective. TransMiCable in Bogotá, Colombia, provides a unique opportunity to (1) assess the effects of its implementation on the environmental and social determinants of health (microenvironment pollution, transport accessibility, physical environment, employment, social capital, and leisure time), physical activity, and health outcomes (health-related quality of life, respiratory diseases, and homicides); and (2) use citizen science methods...

Neighborhood Characteristics and Transport Walking: Exploring Multiple Pathways of Influence Using a Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Li, J
Auchincloss, AH
Yang, Y
Rodriguez, DA
Sánchez, BN
2020

In studies of neighborhood effects on transport walking, residential preferences along with other personal characteristics (walking attitude, factors that affect decision to walk for transport) are important factors to consider. However, few studies have examined relationships between neighborhood characteristics and transport walking accounting for a complex suite of personal factors. This study employed a structural equation modeling approach to examine associations between neighborhood characteristics and transport walking behaviors by accounting for residential preferences, self-...