BACKGROUND Several studies have highlighted the importance of collective social factors for population health. One of the major challenges is an adequate definition of the spatial units of analysis which present properties potentially related to the target outcomes. Political and administrative divisions of urban areas are the most commonly used definition, although they suffer limitations in t...

Anonymous database search protocols allow users to query a database anonymously. This can be achieved by letting the users form a peerto-peer community and post queries on behalf of each other. In this article we discuss an application of combinatorial configurations (also known as regular and uniform partial linear spaces) to a protocol for anonymous database search, as defining the key-distri...

Childhood lead poisoning in the United States remains a persistent, prevalent environmental public health problem, especially for children living in central-city neighborhoods. These neighborhoods typically are racially segregated, are in proximity to current and/or legacy lead emission sources, consist of older housing, and contain disproportionately African American or black children of low-i...

BACKGROUND Childhood asthma prevalence has been shown to be higher in urban communities overall without an understanding of differences by neighborhood. OBJECTIVE To characterize the geographic variability of childhood asthma prevalence among neighborhoods in Chicago. METHODS Asthma screening was conducted among children attending 105 Chicago schools as part of the Chicago Initiative to Rai...

Data generated on location-aware social media provide rich information about the places (shopping malls, restaurants, cafés, etc) where citizens spend their time. That information can, in turn, be used to describe city neighborhoods in terms of the activity that takes place therein. For example, the data might reveal that citizens visit one neighborhood mainly for shopping, while another for it...

Anonymous database search protocols allow users to query a database anonymously. This can be achieved by letting the users form a peerto-peer community and post queries on behalf of each other. In this article we discuss an application of combinatorial configurations (also known as regular and uniform partial linear spaces) to a protocol for anonymous database search, as defining the key-distri...

Abstract The refugee crisis of 2015 became a major issue both national and pan-European debate. Behavioral reactions among natives in the form support for radical-right parties or leaving neighborhoods following influxes non-Westerners are well documented, but detailed account how asylum seekers contribute to these dynamics remains elusive. In this paper, I study centers refugees choosing their...

BACKGROUND The probable coexistence of two or more epidemiological profiles in urban Africa is poorly documented. In particular, very few studies have focused on the comparison of cause-specific mortality between two types of neighborhoods that characterize contemporary southern cities: formal neighborhoods, that is, structured or delineated settlements (planned estates) that have full access t...