In this issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, Sage et al1 report a novel study of nondisclosure provisions among Texas malpractice settlementagreements.Nearlyall thesettlementscontained at least one type of disclosure restriction, andapproximately 40% barred claimants fromdiscussing the facts surrounding their injury. Nearly a quarter prohibited claimants fromalertingaprofessional regulatorybody tow...

Access to facilities, services and socio-economic opportunities plays a critical role in the growth and decline of cities and human settlements. Previous attempts to explain changes in socio-economic indicators by differences in accessibility have not been convincing as countries with highly developed transport infrastructure have only seen marginal benefits of infrastructure improvements. Aust...

A growing body of literature discusses the CO2 emissions of cities. Still, little is known about emission patterns across density gradients from remote rural places to highly urbanized areas, the drivers behind those emission patterns and the global emissions triggered by consumption in human settlements—referred to here as the carbon footprint. In this letter we use a hybrid method for estimat...

BACKGROUND Previous research using routine data identified rapid mass privatisation as an important driver of mortality crisis following the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. However, existing studies on the mortality crisis relying on individual level or routine data cannot assess both distal (societal) and proximal (individual) causes of mortality simultaneously. The aim of...

Sustainable urbanization policies and strategies are posited as a major tool by which to achieve the sustainable development of growing towns and cities. A major challenge for sustainable urbanization policies and strategies is how to address the complexity of urbanization, especially the ongoing growth of informal settlements and slums in developing countries. It is acknowledged that those liv...

BACKGROUND Southwest China is home to more than 30 ethnic minority groups. Since most of these populations reside in mountainous areas, convenient access to medical services is an important metric of how well their livelihoods are being protected. METHODS This paper proposes a medical convenience index (MCI) and computation model for mountain residents, taking into account various conditions ...

Data are analysed for 684 settlements in Ukraine and 458 settlements in Belarus. In each of the settlements more than 10 measurements of the I content in human thyroids had been performed in the period May/June 1986. Based on the measurement data, average thyroid doses due to the Chernobyl accident were assessed for every birth year in the birth-year cohort 1968-85. Census data from 1979 and 19...

The chapter presents a spatial interaction entropy model that addresses the dynamics of urban growth using sites from the Late Uruk period in southern Mesopotamia as examples. The model addresses to what extent geography, transportation, and factors that make locations attractive for trade and settlement affect why some settlements grow while others stabilize or diminish in size through time. T...

The spatial patterns of rural settlements are important for understanding the drivers of land use change and the relationship between human activity and environmental processes. It has been suggested that the clustering of houses decreases the negative effects on the environment and promotes the development of the countryside, but few empirical studies have quantified the spatial distribution p...