BACKGROUND Although child immunization is regarded as a highly cost-effective lifesaver, about fifty percent of the eligible children aged 12-23 months in India are without essential immunization coverage. Despite several programmatic initiatives, urban-rural and gender difference in child immunization pose an intimidating challenge to India's public health agenda. This study assesses the urban...

Over long time periods, urbanization is expected to have a negative effect on species diversity. Predicted effects generally follow one of three competing paradigms: diversity decay, homogenization, or communitycomposition turnover. However, it has been hypothesized that urban green spaces may provide a means by which urban areas can maintain or increase their species diversity over time. We us...

Our societies are reliant on metals to such an extent that the total amounts of some of them in the built environment are comparable in size to the remaining amounts in known mountain ores. Because of concerns about mineral scarcity, the United Nations has assessed alternative sources for metal extraction and targeted urban areas in general and infrastructure systems in particular, since these ...

To the Editor: Studies in developing countries (DCs) have frequently reported a lower prevalence of allergic diseases (ADs) in rural areas compared with urban settings, and this has been attributed to the protective effects of environmental exposures such as rural lifestyle. Recent evidence from studies conducted in Africa and Asia showed that ADs are increasing in urban and even in rural setti...

The Yemen conflict has caused a severe humanitarian crisis. This study aims to evaluate the Yemen crisis by making use of time series nighttime light images from the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite sensor (NPP-VIIRS). We develop a process flow to correct NPP-VIIRS nighttime light from April 2012 to March 2017 by employing the Defense Meteorolo...

The global food crisis of 2008 led to renewed interest in global food insecurity and how macro-level food prices impact household and individual level wellbeing. There is debate over the extent to which food price increases in 2008 eroded food security, the extent to which this effect was distributed across rural and urban locales, and the extent to which rural farmers might have benefited. Eth...