The measurement of spatial segregation has often used measures such as the Neighborhood Sorting Index (NSI) or the Index of Dissimilarity (D) that do not take full account of space. We propose a Generalized Neighborhood Sorting Index (GNSI), an extension of NSI, in which each neighborhood is part of a broader community, the extent of which can be easily changed by increasing the order of contig...

Spatial data mining algorithms heavily depend on the efficient processing of neighborhood relations since the neighbors of many objects have to be investigated in a single run of a typical algorithm. Therefore, providing general concepts for neighborhood relations as well as an efficient implementation of these concepts will allow a tight integration of spatial data mining algorithms with a spa...

Several different trends in the 1990s have led to increased efforts to improve the alternatives to driving. In response, planning agencies have been taking a new look at both transportation and land use policies in an effort to enhance transportation choices. Their efforts have been hampered by a lack of practical planning tools. What's needed are practical measures of accessibility that can be...

BACKGROUND Receipt of nephrology care prior to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is a strong predictor of decreased mortality and morbidity, and neighborhood poverty may influence access to care. Our objective was to examine whether neighborhood poverty is associated with lack of pre-ESRD care at dialysis facilities. METHODS In a multi-level ecological study using geospatially linked 2007-2010 D...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between body mass index and neighborhood walkability, socioeconomic status (SES), reasons for choosing neighborhoods, physical activity, fruit and vegetable intake, and demographic variables. METHODS Two studies, one longitudinal and one cross-sectional, were conducted. Participants included adults (n = 572) who provided com...

Disparities in neighborhood food access are well documented, but little research exists on how shocks influence such disparities. We examined neighborhood food access in New Orleans at 3 time points: before Hurricane Katrina (2004-2005), in 2007, and in 2009. We combined existing directories with on-the-ground verification and geographic information system mapping to assess supermarket counts i...

Topological relativity is a concept of interest in geographic information theory. One way of assessing the importance of topology in spatial reasoning is to analyze commonplace terms from natural language relative to conceptual neighborhood graphs, the alignment structures of choice for topological relations. Sixteen English-language spatial prepositions for regionregion relations were analyzed...

Air quality health impact assessment (HIA) synthesizes information about air pollution exposures, health effects, and population vulnerability for regulatory decision-making and public engagement. HIAs often use annual average county or regional data to estimate health outcome incidence rates that vary substantially by season and at the subcounty level. Using New York City as an example, we ass...