Associations between neighborhood built-environment characteristics and hepatic steatosis: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

Objective: To characterize the spatio-temporal association between features of the built environment and subclinical liver disease.

Design: We used data from a large community-based population, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (2000-2002, N = 5542) with linked historical residential data that characterized past exposure to alcohol outlets (bars and liquor stores), healthy foods stores, and physical activity facilities (1990-2001). We examined whether and how past residential relate to hepatic steatosis (proxied by liver attenuation measured using computed tomography, with lower attenuation indicating higher hepatic steatosis).

"Competitive" Food and Beverage Laws and Obesity Among Diverse Youth in California High Schools.

Purpose: To investigate associations between the California "competitive" food and beverage (CF&B) laws and overweight/obesity (OV/OB) among high school youth by gender, school-neighborhood income, and race/ethnicity, and to examine racial/ethnic OV/OB disparities before and after CF&B policies.

Methods: Using an interrupted time series design paired with retrospective cross-sectional Fitnessgram data from 3,565,260 youth-level records on ninth-grade students in California public schools, we estimated gender, school-neighborhood income, and racial/ethnic OV/OB prevalence trends before (2002-2007) and after the CF&B policies were in effect (2008-2012).

Results: In the period before the CF&B policies, OV/OB prevalence increased annually among the majority of subgroups regardless of gender, school-neighborhood income and race/ethnicity.

Estimating the effect of latent time-varying count exposures using multiple lists.

A major challenge in longitudinal built-environment health studies is the accuracy of commercial business databases that are used to characterize dynamic food environments. Different databases often provide conflicting exposure measures on the same subject due to different source credibilities. As on-site verification is not feasible for historical data, we suggest combining multiple databases to correct the bias in health effect estimates due to measurement error in any 1 datasource.

Spatial scale effects on associations between built environment and cognitive function: Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

Built environments have the potential to favorably support cognitive function. Despite growing work on this topic, most of the work has ignored variation in the spatial scale of the effect. The issue with spatial scale effects is that the size and shape of the areal unit within which built environment characteristics are measured naturally influence the built environment exposure metric and thus the estimated associations with health.

Temporal Patterns in Fruit and Vegetable Intake Among Racially and Ethnically Diverse Children and Adolescents in California.

Introduction: Childhood dietary behaviors, including fruit and vegetable intake, are associated with adult health. Most children do not meet daily recommended servings of fruits and vegetables. Less is known about temporal patterns in fruit and vegetable consumption or if they vary by race and ethnicity.

"Competitive" food and beverage policies and weight status: A systematic review of the evidence among sociodemographic subgroups.

Prior studies identified variable associations between competitive food and beverage policies (CF&B) and youth obesity, potentially due to differences across population subgroups. This review summarizes the evidence on associations between CF&B policies and childhood obesity within gender, grade level/ age, race/ethnicity, and/or socioeconomic levels. PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, and ERIC database searches identified studies published in English in Canada and the United States between January 1, 2000, and February 28, 2022.

Greenness and excess deaths from heat in 323 Latin American cities: Do associations vary according to climate zone or green space configuration?

Green vegetation may protect against heat-related death by improving thermal comfort. Few studies have investigated associations of green vegetation with heat-related mortality in Latin America or whether associations are modified by the spatial configuration of green vegetation. We used data from 323 Latin American cities and meta-regression models to estimate associations between city-level greenness, quantified using population-weighted normalized difference vegetation index values and modeled as three-level categorical terms, and excess deaths from heat (heat excess death fractions [heat EDFs]).

The pregnancy research on inflammation, nutrition, & city environment: systematic analyses study (PRINCESA) cohort, 2009-2015.

The Pregnancy Research on Inflammation, Nutrition, & City Environment: Systematic Analyses Study (PRINCESA) cohort was set up to evaluate associations between air pollution and birth outcomes among pregnant persons in Mexico City. Specifically, the study was designed to improve air pollution exposure assessment and elucidate biological mechanisms underlying associations between maternal exposures and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Pregnant persons (all women) (N = 935) between ages 18-45 who lived and/or worked in metropolitan Mexico City, Mexico, from 2009 to 2015 and liveborn singleton infants (N = 815) of participants who completed follow-up were enrolled in the cohort.

Association of service facilities and amenities with adolescent birth rates in Mexican cities.

Background: The association of the built environment and the structural availability of services/amenities with adolescent birth rates (ABR) has been overlooked in Latin America. We investigated the association of the availability, and changes in the availability, of services/amenities with ABR in 92 Mexican cities.

Methods: We estimated ABR using data on live birth registration linked to municipality of residence at the time of birth from 2008-2017.

HOW CLOSE AND HOW MUCH? LINKING HEALTH OUTCOMES TO BUILT ENVIRONMENT SPATIAL DISTRIBUTIONS.

Built environment features (BEFs) refer to aspects of the human constructed environment, which may in turn support or restrict health related behaviors and thus impact health. In this paper we are interested in understanding whether the spatial distribution and quantity of fast food restaurants (FFRs) influence the risk of obesity in schoolchildren. To achieve this goal, we propose a two-stage Bayesian hierarchical modeling framework.

INTEGRATING MULTIPLE BUILT ENVIRONMENT DATA SOURCES.

Studies examining the contribution of the built environment to health often rely on commercial data sources to derive exposure measures such as the number of specific food outlets in study participants' neighborhoods. Data on the location of community amenities (e.g.

Frailty in Older Adults and Internal and Forced Migration in Urban Neighborhood Contexts in Colombia.

We investigated the association between the density of internal human migration, in the urban neighborhood, on frailty in the older adult population in Colombia. The data used in this study are from four Colombian population surveys. We analyzed 633 census tracts with a sample of 2,194 adults 60 years and over for frailty (measured using the Fried criteria).

Health and Environmental Co-Benefits of City Urban Form in Latin America: An Ecological Study.

We investigated the association of urban landscape profiles with health and environmental outcomes, and whether those profiles are linked to environmental and health co-benefits. In this ecological study, we used data from 208 cities in 8 Latin American countries of the (SALURBAL) project. Four urban landscape profiles were defined with metrics for the fragmentation, isolation, and shape of patches (contiguous area of urban development).

Do diurnal salivary cortisol curves carry meaningful information about the regulatory biology of the HPA axis in healthy humans?

Salivary cortisol stress biomarkers have been extensively used in epidemiological work to document links between stress and ill health. There has been little effort to ground field friendly cortisol measures in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis regulatory biology that is likely relevant to delineating mechanistic pathways leading from stress exposure to detrimental health outcomes. Here, we utilized a healthy convenience sample (n = 140) to examine normal linkages between extensively collected salivary cortisol measures and available laboratory probes of HPA axis regulatory biology.

Trends in school-neighbourhood inequalities and youth obesity: Repeated cross-sectional analyses of the public schools in the state of California.

Background: It is currently unknown whether the relationship between affluence of school neighbourhoods and prevalence of youth overweight/obesity is uniform across demographic subgroups and areal context in the United States.

Methods: We examined association between school-neighbourhood income tertiles and school-level overweight/obesity (OVOB) prevalence, using data on body mass index of fifth, seventh, and nineth graders who attended public schools in California in 2001 and 2010 (n = 1 584 768), using multiple logistic regression models.

Results: Overall, OVOB prevalence was higher in lower-income school neighbourhoods, with a steeper income-OVOB gradient for girls.

Modification of temperature-related human mortality by area-level socioeconomic and demographic characteristics in Latin American cities.

Background: In Latin America, where climate change and rapid urbanization converge, non-optimal ambient temperatures contribute to excess mortality. However, little is known about area-level characteristics that confer vulnerability to temperature-related mortality.

Objectives: Explore city-level socioeconomic and demographic characteristics associated with temperature-related mortality in Latin American cities.

Adolescent birth rates and the urban social environment in 363 Latin American cities.

Introduction: Latin America has the second-highest adolescent birth rate (ABR) worldwide. Variation between urban and rural areas and evidence linking country development to ABR points towards upstream factors in the causal pathway. We investigated variation in ABR within and between cities, and whether different features of urban social environments are associated with ABR.

Characterizing food environments near schools in California: A latent class approach simultaneously using multiple food outlet types and two spatial scales.

It is challenging to evaluate associations between the food environment near schools with either prevalence of childhood obesity or with socioeconomic characteristics of schools. This is because the food environment has many dimensions, including its spatial distribution. We used latent class analysis to classify public schools in urban, suburban, and rural areas in California into food environment classes based on the availability and spatial distribution of multiple types of unhealthy food outlets nearby.

Ambient temperature and term birthweight in Latin American cities.

Background: Extreme temperatures may lead to adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes, including low birthweight. Studies on the impact of temperature on birthweight have been inconclusive due to methodological challenges related to operationalizing temperature exposure, the definitions of exposure windows, accounting for gestational age, and a limited geographic scope.

Methods: We combined data on individual-level term live births (N≈15 million births) from urban areas in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico from 2010 to 2015 from the SALURBAL study (Urban Health in Latin America) with high-resolution daily air temperature data and computed average ambient temperature for every month of gestation for each newborn.

City-level impact of extreme temperatures and mortality in Latin America.

Climate change and urbanization are rapidly increasing human exposure to extreme ambient temperatures, yet few studies have examined temperature and mortality in Latin America. We conducted a nonlinear, distributed-lag, longitudinal analysis of daily ambient temperatures and mortality among 326 Latin American cities between 2002 and 2015. We observed 15,431,532 deaths among ≈2.

Racial/ethnic disparities in childhood obesity: The role of school segregation.

Objective: Recent studies have observed that racial or ethnic adult health disparities revealed in national data dissipate in racially integrated communities, supporting the theory that "place, not race" shapes the nature and magnitude of racial/ethnic health disparities. This study tested this theory among children.

Methods: In 2020, the racial/ethnic childhood obesity disparities within integrated schools and between segregated schools were estimated using statewide cross-sectional data collected in 2019 on fifth, seventh, and ninth grade students from California public schools.

Split and combine simulation extrapolation algorithm to correct geocoding coarsening of built environment exposures.

A major challenge in studies relating built environment features to health is measurement error in exposure due to geocoding errors. Faulty geocodes in built environment data introduce errors to exposure assessments that may induce bias in the corresponding health effect estimates. In this study, we examine the distribution of the measurement error in measures constructed from point-referenced exposures, quantify the extent of bias in exposure effect estimates due to geocode coarsening, and extend the simulation extrapolation (SIMEX) method to correct the bias.

Exploring the spatial scale effects of built environments on transport walking: Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

We employed a longitudinal distributed lag modeling approach to systematically estimate how associations between built environment features and transport walking decayed with the increase of distance from home to built environment destinations. Data came from a cohort recruited from six U.S.