Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine
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Structural racism in police contact is an important driver of health inequities among the U. S. urban population. Hyper-policing and police violence in marginalized communities have risen to the top of the national policy agenda, particularly since protests in 2020. ⋯ However, despite declines in nearly all census tracts, the magnitude of racial inequities in arrests remained unchanged. During the initial weeks of the pandemic, arrest rates declined significantly in areas with higher Black populations, but average rates in Black neighborhoods remained higher than pre-pandemic arrest rates in White neighborhoods. These findings support urban policy reforms that reconsider police capacity and presence, particularly as a mechanism for enforcing public health ordinances and reducing racial disparities.
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In the Republic of Korea, social distancing policies relied on voluntary participation by citizens and exhibited short-term changes. In this situation, the effects of such policies varied depending on each community's capacity to comply. ⋯ We found that the mean percent change in subway ridership was fitted by an additive model of the log-transformed percent ratio of the restaurant industry (estimated degrees of freedom (EDF) = 3.24, P < 0.001), the Deprivation Index (DI) (EDF = 3.66, P = 0.015), and the proportion of essential workers (β = - 0.10 (95% confidence interval - 0.15 to - 0.05, P < 0.001). We found a distinct decrease in subway ridership only in the least deprived areas, suggesting that social distancing is costly.
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Differential social and contextual environments may contribute to adolescent sleep disparities, yet most prior studies are limited to self-reported sleep data and have not been conducted at a national level, limiting the variation in neighborhood contexts. This study examined the association between neighborhood disadvantage and objective measures of adolescent sleep. A racially and geographically diverse sample of American adolescents (N = 682) wore wrist-worn accelerometers, "actigraphs," for ≥ 5 nights. ⋯ Adolescents in more disadvantaged neighborhoods spent more time awake after falling asleep (4.0 min/night, p < .05), a greater percentage of nighttime sleep intervals awake (1%, p < .01), and had less consistent sleep duration (11.6% higher standard deviation, p < .05). Sleep duration and timing did not differ across neighborhood groups. These findings demonstrate that adolescents who live in more disadvantaged neighborhoods have lower quality, less consistent sleep.
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Historical, institutional racism within the housing market may have impacted present-day disparities in heat vulnerability. We quantified associations between historically redlined areas with present-day property and housing characteristics that may enhance heat vulnerability in Philadelphia, PA. We used color-coded Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps and tax assessment data to randomly select 100 present-day (2018-2019) residential properties in each HOLC grade area (A = Best; B, C, and D = Most hazardous; N = 400 total). ⋯ Adjusting for present-day concentrated racial and socioeconomic deprivation did not substantially impact overall findings. In Philadelphia, PA, HOLC maps serve as spatial representations of present-day housing and land cover heat vulnerability characteristics. Further analyses incorporating longitudinal data on urban redevelopment, reinvestment, and neighborhood change are needed to more fully represent complex relationships among historical racism, residential segregation, and heat vulnerability.