BACKGROUND Prior research has reported disparities in environmental exposures in the United States, but, to our knowledge, no nationwide studies have assessed inequality in noise pollution. OBJECTIVES We aimed to a) assess racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities in noise pollution in the contiguous United States; and b) consider the modifying role of metropolitan level racial residential...

Motivated by concern about rising obesity rates, researchers have begun to map the neighborhood " food environment " and examine its association with the risk of overweight or obesity. Some argue that " food deserts " – areas with little or no provision of fresh produce and other healthy food – may contribute to disparities in obesity, diabetes, and related health problems. When access to healt...

BACKGROUND Urban-rural disparities in suicide mortality have received considerable attention. Varying conceptualizations of urbanity may contribute to the conflicting findings. This ecological study on Germany assessed how and to what extent urban-rural suicide associations are affected by 14 different urban-rural indicators. METHODS Indicators were based on continuous or k-means classified p...

BACKGROUND Despite advances in the quality and delivery of stroke care, regional disparities in stroke incidence and outcome persist. Spatial analysis using geographic information systems (GIS) can assist in identifying high-risk populations and regional differences in efficacy of stroke care. The aim of this study was to identify and locate geographic clusters of high or low rates of stroke, r...

background :there is substantial lack of knowledge about the role of socioeconomic status (ses) indicators on life expectancy (le) within-cities, especially within mega-cities. we aimed to investigate the disparities of le within city districts of tehran, iran, and specify how ses inequalities play role on le.   methods : the death and population data for 2010 by different age, gender, and resi...

While numerous studies have examined the magnitude of the urban heat island, no large-scale study has yet analyzed its variability using an air-mass based methodology. The air-mass approach can provide unique insight by discerning how large-scale weather patterns may impact the magnitude of the heat island effect. This study utilizes the Spatial Synoptic Classification (SSC) scheme, a recently-...

Context of contents for optimal user experience can be composed of various elements including time, spatial context, and social context. And also including global, local and personal contexts. In this paper, we proposed a representation scheme of spatial context hierarchy for optimal content services. Proposed context representation consists of time and spatial index and relations makes formal ...

OBJECTIVES To document and compare the magnitude of inequities in child malnutrition across urban and rural areas, and to investigate the extent to which within-urban disparities in child malnutrition are accounted for by the characteristics of communities, households and individuals. METHODS The most recent data sets available from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) of 15 countries in ...

the interactions and linkages between urban centers and peripheral settlements are increasingly recognized as key factors in the process of social, economic and environmental changes in peripheral settlements. despite this, most practices are implicitly based on a dichotomous view of population and activities in urban and peripheral area. this paper presents that how interactions between urba...

IMPORTANCE Little is known about recent trends in rural-urban disparities in youth suicide, particularly sex- and method-specific changes. Documenting the extent of these disparities is critical for the development of policies and programs aimed at eliminating geographic disparities. OBJECTIVE To examine trends in US suicide mortality for adolescents and young adults across the rural-urban co...