Health & place
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The increasing inequality in spatial accessibility to hospitals in developing countries has been attracting attention from researchers and politicians. The situation seems to be worse in growing megacities where more than 10 million people live and rapid urban sprawl has caused serious problems with the supply of health and public transport services. The recent global COVID-19 pandemic calls for particular attention to be afforded to the matter of equal access to basic medical facilities and services for people across different neighborhoods. ⋯ It seems that the rapid urban sprawl has been worsening spatial inequality in the context of access to medical services in the growing megacity of Beijing. Equal access to healthcare services should be prioritized in future policy discussions, especially in relation to the urban growth management of megacities in developing countries in order to ensure that fair and inclusive urbanization processes are undertaken. Equal access to healthcare services would also be widely beneficial in the context of managing the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Urban green space may help slow cognitive decline. We extend the investigation towards subjective memory and green space type using latent class analysis and multilevel models of 45,644 individuals in the Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study. ⋯ Higher quantities of open grass relative to tree canopy did not afford similar levels of benefit. Socioeconomic factors explained associations between green space and cumulative incidence of memory-related outcomes.