Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
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Non-Hispanic Black women remain at increased risk for adverse birth outcomes, yet Black immigrant women are at lower risk than their US-born counterparts. This study examines whether neighborhood context contributes to the nativity advantage in preterm birth (PTB, < 37 weeks) among Black women in California. A sample of live singleton births to non-Hispanic US-born (n = 83,169), African-born (n = 7151), and Caribbean-born (n = 943) Black women was drawn from 2007 to 2010 California birth records and geocoded to urban census tracts. ⋯ The nativity advantage in PTB risk was robust to neighborhood social conditions and maternal factors for African-born women (RR = 0.59, 95%CI: 0.51-0.67). This study is one of few that considers area-level explanations of the nativity advantage among Black immigrants and makes a significant contribution by showing that the neighborhood context does not explain the nativity advantage in PTB among Black women in California. This could be due to many factors that should be examined in future research.
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Integrated strategies of community health promotion (ISCHP) are based on intersectoral collaborations using the Health in All Policies approach to address determinants of health. While effects on health determinants have been shown, evidence on the effectiveness of ISCHP on health outcomes is scarce. The aim of this study is to assess the long-term effects of ISCHP on diabetes mellitus mortality (DMM) in German communities. ⋯ This study provides preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of ISCHP in Germany. Limitations include inaccuracies to classify IG and CG and possible selection bias. Longitudinal county-level data may be an efficient data source to evaluate complex interventions, thereby contributing to further strengthen evidence-based integrated health promotion.
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Place-based interventions are increasingly implemented to address firearm violence. While research on the social determinants of health and criminological theories suggest that the built environment significantly influences health outcomes and the spatial distribution of crime, little is known about the attraction between urban places and shootings. The present study adds to the literature on firearm violence and micro-place research by exploring the spatial dependence in a Midwest metropolitan area between shootings and bus stops, vacant properties, alcohol outlets, and other locations that have been theoretically or empirically linked to firearm violence. ⋯ Attraction between on-premises alcohol outlets and shootings was observed only during the night. No attraction was found between schools and shootings. The findings reaffirm the importance of place-based research-especially at the micro-place level-and suggest that certain urban places may be appropriate targets for interventions that modify existing physical and/or social structures.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Gender Differences in Impacts of Place-Based Neighborhood Greening Interventions on Fear of Violence Based on a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial.
Maintained green space in underserved urban neighborhoods may be an important environmental pathway to improving community health and safety, though effects may vary across population subgroups and by time of day. We examined survey responses from 442 participants (178 men and 264 women), living near vacant lots in a cluster-randomized controlled trial of a cleaning and greening intervention, on perceived safety during the day and at night. At the intervention sites after the intervention, only men reported feeling less unsafe during the day. ⋯ The clean-and-green intervention may have allayed fears for men during the day and supported their ease of movement throughout their neighborhoods. However, at night, it may have had the opposite effect on women. Though our study was under-powered, not designed to test associations stratified by gender, directions and magnitudes of associations differed substantially, indicating a need for further investigations into potential gender differences in the benefits of green space, to inform and better tailor interventions to improve perceived safety for all.
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Childhood asthma exacerbation remains the leading cause of pediatric emergency department visits and hospitalizations and disproportionately affects Latinx and Black children, compared to non-Latinx White children in NYC. Environmental exposures and socioeconomic factors may jointly contribute to childhood asthma exacerbations; however, they are often studied separately. To better investigate the multiple contributors to disparities in childhood asthma, we compiled data on various individual and neighborhood level socioeconomic and environmental factors, including education, race/ethnicity, income disparities, gentrification, housing characteristics, built environment, and structural racism, from the NYC Department of Health's KIDS 2017 survey and the US Census' American Community Survey. ⋯ We found that housing and built environment characteristics, such as density and age of buildings, were the predominant features to differentiate the socio-environmental patterns observed in New York City. Children living in neighborhoods with greater proportions of rental housing, high-density buildings, and older buildings were more likely to experience asthma exacerbations than other children. These findings add to the literature about childhood asthma in urban environments, and can assist efforts to target actionable policies and practices that promote health equity related to childhood asthma.