BACKGROUND Control selection is a major challenge in epidemiologic case-control studies. The aim of our study was to evaluate using hospital versus neighborhood control groups in studying risk factors of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We compared the results of two different case-control studies of ESCC conducted in the same region by a single resear...

BACKGROUND Socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic factors are known determinants of stroke and myocardial infarction (MI) risk. Clustering of these factors in neighborhoods needs to be taken into consideration during planning, prioritization and implementation of health programs intended to reduce disparities. Given the complex and multidimensional nature of these factors, multivariate meth...

BACKGROUND Living in a socially deprived neighborhood is associated with lifestyle risk factors, e.g., smoking, physical inactivity and unhealthy diet, as well as an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, i.e., coronary heart disease and stroke. The aim was to study whether the odds of cardiovascular disease vary with the neighbourhood availability of potentially health-damaging and health-p...

BACKGROUND Research has demonstrated that children who participate in active play are more likely to be physically active, thereby improving long-term health outcomes. Many adult studies have also shown that neighborhood built environments can encourage or discourage routine physical activity. Limited evidence has demonstrated that children who reside in neighborhoods with a built environment t...

BACKGROUND Research on the association between the physical environment and physical activity in children has focused on built and developed features or total green space. The impact of natural, undeveloped green spaces is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine whether the presence of undeveloped green spaces in the home neighborhood are associated with physical activity in 11 to...

Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated to increased individual risk of ischemic heart disease (IHD). However, the value of this association for causal inference is uncertain. Moreover, neighborhoods are often defined by available administrative boundaries without evaluating in which degree these boundaries embrace a relevant socio-geographical context that condition individual di...

neighborhood attachment is closely related to concrete and abstract conceptions that set the scene for a variety of interactions among the residents. it is on the basis of social-physical location which happens over time. neighborhood attachment also enhances the possibility of residents’ social participation in urban neighborhoods and has a bilateral relationship with residents’ satisfaction. ...

Abstract Human development is a complex process involving interactions between individuals and their socioeconomic, biological, physical environments. It has been studied using two frameworks: the “Capabilities Approach,” implemented at national scale, “Neighborhood Effects community scale. However, no existing framework conceptualizes measures human across geographic scales. Here, we unite app...

Continuous change models are commonly based on the Systems Dynamics paradigm. However, this paradigm does not provide support for an explicit and heterogeneous representation of geographic space, nor its topological (neighborhood) structure. Therefore, using it in modeling spatial changes still remains a challenge. In this context, this paper presents an algebra that extends the Systems Dynamic...

As sensor networks are deployed over various terrains, the complexity of their topology continues to grow. Voids in networks often cause existing geographic routing algorithms to fail. In this paper, we introduce a novel concept: virtual position to address this issue. A virtual position is the middle position of all direct neighbors of a node. Such virtual position reflects the neighborhood of...