Reparations for African Enslavement in the U.S. and Black Survival Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.

Activists, policymakers, and scholars increasingly have advocated for reparations payments to Black Americans to redress the harms of enslavement and discriminatory practices that followed. This study examined the effects of a hypothetical monetary reparations intervention on all-cause premature and overall mortality among Black adults in the U.S.

Methodological Approaches to Structural Change: Epidemiology and the Case for Reparations.

Scholars, activists, and policymakers have long called for reparations - a process of repair and restitution for harm and injustices done - to descendants of enslaved Africans in the U.S. as a structural intervention to address historic and ongoing injustices.

Sociopolitical Diagnostic Tools to Understand National and Local Response Capabilities and Vulnerabilities to Epidemics and Guide Research into How to Improve the Global Response to Pathogens.

The AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics demonstrated that nations at similar economic development levels varied widely in their capacity to protect the health of their residents. For AIDS, Britain and Australia brought gay representatives into official counsels and adopted harm reduction far more rapidly than the United States or Spain, and East African countries responded more effectively than South Africa or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. National responses to COVID-19 varied widely, with New Zealand, China, and Vietnam more effective than Italy, Brazil, or the United States.

Fairness and efficiency considerations in COVID-19 vaccine allocation strategies: A case study comparing front-line workers and 65-74 year olds in the United States.

The COVID-19 epidemic in the United States has been characterized by two stark disparities. COVID-19 burden has been unequally distributed among racial and ethnic groups and at the same time the mortality rates have been sharply higher among older age groups. These disparities have led some to suggest that inequalities could be reduced by vaccinating front-line workers before vaccinating older individuals, as older individuals in the US are disproportionately Non-Hispanic White.

Tobacco and Alcohol Retailer Availability and Neighborhood Racialized, Economic, and Racialized Economic Segregation in North Carolina.

Background: Despite evidence of racialized and socioeconomic inequities in tobacco and alcohol outlet availability, few studies have investigated spatial inequities in areas experiencing both concentrated residential racialized segregation and socioeconomic disadvantage. This study examined whether segregation-racialized, economic or both-was associated with alcohol and tobacco retailer counts in North Carolina (NC).

Methods: The NC Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission provided lists of 2021 off-premise alcohol retailers.

Examining COVID-19 mortality rates by race and ethnicity among incarcerated people in 11 U.S. state prisons (March-October 2021).

Background: Populations who are incarcerated have experienced disproportionately high coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019) mortality rates compared to the general population. However, mortality rates by race/ethnicity from federal, state, and local carceral settings are largely unavailable due to unregulated reporting; therefore, racial/ethnic inequities have yet to be examined. We aimed to estimate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mortality rates among individuals incarcerated in U.

Eviction, Healthcare Utilization, and Disenrollment Among New York City Medicaid Patients.

Introduction: Although growing evidence links residential evictions to health, little work has examined connections between eviction and healthcare utilization or access. In this study, eviction records are linked to Medicaid claims to estimate short-term associations between eviction and healthcare utilization, as well as Medicaid disenrollment.

Methods: New York City eviction records from 2017 were linked to New York State Medicaid claims, with 1,300 evicted patients matched to 261,855 non-evicted patients with similar past healthcare utilization, demographics, and neighborhoods.

Variation in COVID-19 Mortality in the US by Race and Ethnicity and Educational Attainment.

Importance: Racial and ethnic inequities in COVID-19 mortality have been well documented, but little prior research has assessed the combined roles of race and ethnicity and educational attainment.

Objective: To measure inequality in COVID-19 mortality jointly by race and ethnicity and educational attainment.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cross-sectional study analyzed data on COVID-19 mortality from the 50 US states and the District of Columbia for the full calendar year 2020.

Social and Economic Differences in Neighborhood Walkability Across 500 U.S. Cities.

Introduction: Neighborhood walkability has been established as a potentially important determinant of various health outcomes that are distributed inequitably by race/ethnicity and sociodemographic status. The objective of this study is to assess the differences in walkability across major urban centers in the U.S.

High School Seniors Who Used E-Cigarettes May Have Otherwise Been Cigarette Smokers: Evidence From Monitoring the Future (United States, 2009-2018).

Introduction: Studies have indicated that youth who use e-cigarettes are more likely to progress to cigarette smoking; however, the likelihood that these youth would have used tobacco products in the pre-vaping era is unclear.

Aims And Methods: This study sought to determine whether youth who used e-cigarettes in 2014-2018 would have likely been smokers in the period preceding e-cigarette availability. Analyzing Monitoring the Future 12th grade data (United States, 2009-2018), we forecasted the prevalence of current smoking with logistic regression-derived propensity scores.

Health and Health Determinant Metrics for Cities: A Comparison of County and City-Level Data.

We evaluated whether using county-level data to characterize public health measures in cities biases the characterization of city populations. We compared 4 public health and sociodemographic measures in 447 US cities (percent of children living in poverty, percent of non-Hispanic Black population, age-adjusted cardiovascular disease mortality, life expectancy at birth) to the same measures calculated for counties that contain those cities. We found substantial and highly variable city-county differences within and across metrics, which suggests that use of county data to proxy city measures could hamper accurate allocation of public health resources and appreciation of the urgency of public health needs in specific locales.

Assessment of Community-Level Disparities in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Infections and Deaths in Large US Metropolitan Areas.

This cross-sectional study examines the association of neighborhood race/ethnicity and poverty with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections and related deaths in urban US counties.

Longitudinal associations between the disruption of incarceration and community re-entry on substance use risk escalation among Black men who have sex with men; A causal analysis.

Background And Aims: While substance use can lead to incarceration, the disruptive effects of incarceration may lead to, or increase psychosocial vulnerability and substance use. Using causal inference methods, we measured longitudinal associations between incarceration and post-release substance use among Black men who have sex with men (BMSM), populations facing disproportionate risk of incarceration and substance use.

Methods: Using data from the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN 061) study (N = 1553) we estimated associations between past 6-month incarceration and binge drinking, marijuana use, and stimulant use post release (at 12-month follow-up visit).

Subgroup Variation and Neighborhood Social Gradients-an Analysis of Hypertension and Diabetes Among Asian Patients (New York City, 2014-2017).

Diabetes and hypertension are socially patterned by individual race/ethnicity and by neighborhood economic context, but distributions among Asian subgroups are undercharacterized. We examined variation in prevalence for both conditions, comparing between US Asian subgroups, including within South Asian nationalities, and comparing within subgroups by neighborhood economic context. We obtained data on a non-probability sample of 633,664 patients ages 18-64 in New York City, NY, USA (2014-2017); 30,138 belonged to one of seven Asian subgroups (Asian Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Filipino).

Assessing county-level determinants of diabetes in the United States (2003-2012).

Using data from the United States Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (2003-2012; N = 3,397,124 adults), we estimated associations between prevalent diabetes and four county-level exposures (fast food restaurant density, convenience store density, unemployment, active commuting). All associations confirmed our a priori hypotheses in conventional multilevel analyses that pooled across years. In contrast, using a random-effects within-between model, we found weak, ambiguous evidence that within-county changes in exposures were associated with within-county change in odds of diabetes.

Impact of Changes in the Food, Built, and Socioeconomic Environment on BMI in US Counties, BRFSS 2003-2012.

Objective: Researchers have linked geographic disparities in obesity to community-level characteristics, yet many prior observational studies have ignored temporality and potential for bias.

Methods: Repeated cross-sectional data were used from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) (2003-2012) to examine the influence of county-level characteristics (active commuting, unemployment, percentage of limited-service restaurants and convenience stores) on BMI. Each exposure was calculated using mean values over the 5-year period prior to BMI measurement; values were standardized; and then variables were decomposed into (1) county means from 2003 to 2012 and (2) county-mean-centered values for each year.

Police-Related Deaths and Neighborhood Economic and Racial/Ethnic Polarization, United States, 2015-2016.

Objectives: To estimate the association between rates of police-related deaths and neighborhood residential segregation (by income, race/ethnicity, or both combined) in the United States.

Methods: We identified police-related deaths that occurred in the United States (2015-2016) using a data set from the Guardian newspaper. We used census data to estimate expected police-related death counts for all US census tracts and to calculate the Index of Concentration at the Extremes as a segregation measure.

Employment trajectories in midlife and cognitive performance in later life: longitudinal study of older American men and women.

Background: Although being employed during midlife is positively associated with cognitive function in later life, little is known with respect to cumulative trajectories or durations of time spent in different kinds of work.

Methods: We investigated the relationships between employment trajectory from ages 31 years to 50 years and cognitive skills at ages 50-78 years among 2521 adults in the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1968 to 2016. Sequence analysis was used to identify prototypical employment trajectories, capturing employment status and high versus lower job skill level at each year of age from 31 years to 50 years.