Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
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The availability of parks and urban green spaces has been associated with a number of benefits, including increased physical activity, improvements in mental health, increases in social interactions, improvements to the environment, and increases in property values. The installation of temporary pop-up parks in urban areas is one way for urban communities to obtain these benefits. In this mixed-methods study, quantitative and qualitative data were gathered by researchers, the city council, a local investment company, and community residents that informed the initiation, iteration, and incremental expansion of a series of temporary, summer pop-up parks in the downtown business district of the City of Los Altos in Northern California over a 4-year period (2013-2016). ⋯ Perspectives of community residents collected before, during, and after the installation of the pop-up parks indicated that the pop-up park created a vibrant space in an otherwise underutilized area that was enjoyed by a variety of people in a host of ways (e.g., children playing, families relaxing, people shopping and eating at downtown stores and restaurants, people of all ages attending scheduled park events). These results informed a number of discussions and meetings between key stakeholders about the pop-up parks, culminating in a temporary park that was held in a new location in 2017 that was substantially larger in size, installed for a longer time period, cost more, and had more scheduled park events. Results from this prospective investigation of the initial impacts of pop-up parks in this urban location provide insights regarding the potential benefits and viability of such temporary parks for residents and businesses alike.
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This commentary argues that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic should be considered as a transdisciplinary societal challenge that requires coordinated systemic thinking and actions in the context of uncertainty. Responses to the propagation of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and the health, economic and social impacts of Covid-19 are complex, emergent and unpredictable. We describe the virtuous relations between three prerequisite conditions-multilevel governance, knowledge and types of resources and individual and collective behaviours-that should be combined in transdisciplinary responses.
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Effective responses to a global pandemic require local action. In the face of a pandemic or similar emergencies, communities of people who use drugs face risks that result from their ongoing drug use, reduced ability to secure treatment for drug use and correlated maladies, lack of access to preventive hygiene, and the realities of homelessness, street-level policing, and criminal justice involvement. ⋯ The section describing each of the risks demonstrates how the coalition acted preemptively at early stages of the pandemic, ahead of official initiatives, to develop ameliorative risk reduction solutions. Outcomes discussed include instances in which obstacles were overcome or still remain.
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Alcohol outlet oversaturation often exacerbates negative public health outcomes. Recently, Baltimore City passed an extensive zoning rewrite ("TransForm Baltimore") that sought to give local government and residents a tool to reduce alcohol outlet oversaturation through land use regulation. The present investigation evaluated the outlet and neighborhood characteristics of stores impacted by two components of TransForm Baltimore: (1) a requirement that taverns licensed for on-premise consumption in addition to off-premise, carryout sales generate at least 50% of their business from on-premise sales, and (2) a requirement to close, repurpose, or relocate all package stores (i.e., off-premise alcohol outlets) that have been operating as "non-conforming" in residential zones since 1971. ⋯ These non-conforming alcohol outlets were disproportionately distributed in predominately poor and African American communities (t test; p < 0.05). As compared to conforming alcohol outlets, more non-conforming alcohol outlets sold sex paraphernalia and healthy foods (chi-square test; p < 0.05). With active enforcement, TransForm Baltimore offers the opportunity for local government and residents to improve public health and increase health equity in vulnerable and marginalized neighborhoods.