Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
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To overcome the challenge of obtaining accurate data on community food retail, we developed an innovative tool to automatically capture food retail data from Google Earth (GE). The proposed method is relevant to non-commercial use or scholarly purposes. We aimed to test the validity of web sources data for the assessment of community food retail environment by comparison to ground-truth observations (gold standard). ⋯ To our knowledge, this research is the first to investigate using GE as a tool to capture community food retail data. Our results suggest that the GE interface could be used to measure the community food environment. Validity was satisfactory for different SES areas and types of outlets.
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Understanding the effect of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on students' health and financial stability is important to establish effective interventions to mitigate these effects, which may have long-term consequences on their health and well-being. Public universities in urban centers represent a substantial proportion of college students in the USA. We implemented a cross-sectional population-based online survey of 2282 students in a large, public university in New York City in April 2020. ⋯ Household and personal experiences with possible COVID-19 symptoms were also associated with anxiety/depression or the need for increased mental health services. Addressing student needs at public urban universities requires an integrated holistic approach that targets urgent mental health and economic needs related to the impact of COVID-19. Students who become infected need mental health services as well as health monitoring.
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Nairobi's urban slums are ill equipped to prevent spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) due to high population density, multigenerational families in poorly ventilated informal housing, and poor sanitation. Physical distancing policies, curfews, and a citywide lockdown were implemented in March and April 2020 resulting in sharp decreases in movement across the city. However, most people cannot afford to stay home completely (e.g., leaving daily to fetch water). ⋯ Steps to protect workers from COVID-19 both in the workplace and while in transit (including masks, hand sanitizer stations, and reduced capacity on public transportation) are critical as economic insecurity in the city increases due to COVID-19 mitigation measures. Workers must be able to commute and maintain employment to not be driven further into poverty. Additionally, to protect the majority of individuals who are only travelling locally within their settlement, mitigation measures such as making masks and handwashing stations accessible within informal settlements must also be implemented, with special attention to the burden placed on women.
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Control of diseases transmitted from person to person may be more effectively and less economically damaging if preventive and ameliorative efforts are focused on the more vulnerable local areas rather than entire countries, provinces, or states. The spread of the COVID-19 virus is highly concentrated in urban US counties. ⋯ Evidence of crowding in homes, workplaces, religious gatherings, preexisting health conditions in the population, and local economic and demographic conditions, with one exception, was predictive of incidence and mortality. Based on the correlation of cases and deaths to length of stay-at-home orders, the orders were associated with about 52% reduced cases and about 55% reduced deaths from those expected without the orders.