City Agencies Research Articles

"You've Got to Understand Community": Community Perceptions on "Breaking the Disconnect" Between Researchers and Communities

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is a growing approach to research yet its implementation does not come without challenges. Incorporating CBPR may be especially difficult for large academic medical institutions where research is conducted by different stakeholders operating under different paradigms. The Environmental Justice Partnership (EJP) is a community-academic partnership that sought to understand and address these challenges. To know how to effectively foster collaboration between a large academic medical center and its surrounding urban community, the EJP sought to understand community stakeholders' views on research, the research process, and how to improve researcher-community collaborations. This study used a qualitative approach to gather information from residents and representatives from community-based organizations (CBOs) and city agencies. The data are from 17 semistructured interviews and 8 focus groups (n = 80) conducted from October 2003 to May 2004. Respondents emphasized the importance of disseminating research findings, working closely with the community before research starts and throughout the study, and listening to community members' priorities and needs. Those with personal research experience had more positive attitudes about research than respondents who had not been in research. Academic institutions need to make greater effort to involve communities regularly in their community-based research to identify community priorities and concerns. Institutions may want to develop strategies for their affiliated researchers to facilitate partnership building. Especially for large academic institutions in urban settings, such efforts may help to bridge distance between researchers and community to promote the shared goal of improved public health.

A personal exposure study employing scripted activities and paths in conjunction with atmospheric releases of perfluorocarbon tracers in Manhattan, New York

A personal exposure study was conducted in New York City as part of the Urban Dispersion Program (UDP). It examined the contact of individuals with four harmless perflourocarbon tracers (PFT) released in Midtown Manhattan with approval by city agencies at separate locations, during two types of experiments, completed during each release period. Two continuous 1 h release periods separated by a 1.5 h ventilation time were completed on 3 October 2005. Stationary site and personal exposure measurements were taken during each period, and the first half hour after the release ended. Two types of scripted exposure activities are reported: Outdoor Source Scale, and Outdoor Neighborhood Scale; requiring 1- and 10-min duration samples, respectively. The results showed that exposures were influenced by the surface winds, the urban terrain, and the movements of people and vehicles typical in urban centers. The source scale exposure data indicated that local conditions significantly affected the distribution of each tracer, and consequently the exposures. The highest PFT exposures resulted from interaction of the scripted activities with local surface conditions. The range measured for 1- min exposures were large with measured values exceeding 5000 ppqv (parts per quadrillion by volume). The neighborhood scale measurements quantified exposures at distances up to seven blocks away from the release points. Generally, but not always, the PFT levels returned quickly to zero indicating that after cessation of the emissions the concentrations decrease rapidly, and reduce the intensity of local exposures. The near source and neighborhood personal exposure route results provided information to establish a baseline for determining how a release could affect both the general public and emergency responders, and evaluate the adequacy of re-entry or exit strategies from a local area. Finally, the data also show that local characteristics can produce "hot spots".

Health impact assessment in San Francisco: Incorporating the social determinants of health into environmental planning

The social determinants of health refer to social, economic and environmental factors that influence well-being including economic inequality, residential segregation, sub-standard housing, lack of supermarkets, schools, transit and open-space, and disruptions to family and social networks. This paper asks whether and how the practice of health impact assessment (HIA) can integrate the social and physical determinants of health into planning processes, overcome institutional and analytic barriers for health analyses in environmental impact assessment, and offer a new model for healthy urban planning. This is done by examining how a municipal health agency, the San Francisco Department of Public Health, utilized HIA to conduct health analyses of development projects, collaborate with other city agencies and community groups, and initiate a multi-stakeholder prescriptive HIA all aimed at integrating health into environmental planning practices. This case is important because the San Francisco DPH is the first city agency in the US to experiment with using HIA that aims to capture the physical and social environmental health impacts of projects and plans. The paper finds that HIA can inject the social determinants of health into planning when public agencies embrace an expanded definition of environmental health, organize health advocacy networks within and outside government, and generate a broad scientific evidence base to substantiate policy change.

Playing Fields and Rare Plants: A Winning Combination

With declining availability of funds for recreational-related construction, communities are searching for innovative ways to receive funding. To have a better chance of receiving funding for the construction of a sports complex and to create a sanctuary for the federally endangered plant, the Texas poppy-mallow (TPM), a partnership was formed among city, county, state, and federal agencies, and private landowners. As a result, Mitchell County was awarded $441,000 from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Outdoor Recreation Matching Grant Program and Partners for Fish and Wildlife to build a 20-acre sports and recreation complex. Funds were awarded, in large part, because Mitchell County created a sanctuary for the TPM. This partnership also represents the first endeavor to restore the TPM.

New State Spaces in Canada: Metropolitanization in Montreal and Toronto Compared

This paper compares the transformation of metropolitan institutions in two Canadian city-regions (Toronto and Montreal). Taking Neil Brenner's argument about new state spaces as a starting point, we discuss comparatively how governance restructuring in recently consolidated Toronto and Montreal has been part of more general changes to the architecture of governance in Canada. We look specifically at changes to the mediation channels between civil society and metropolitan institutions. A "nationally" scaled comparison, this project must take into account the specific differences between Francophone and Anglophone Canada, between the different civic traditions in Montreal and Toronto and different traditional significance attributed to the scale and nature of metropolitan governance structures and variously scaled agency in both cities. This makes our case in many ways more like an international comparison.

Global cities of the South: Emerging perspectives on growth and inequality

This paper attempts to reframe debates on the equity implications of spatial, socioeconomic, and political change in global cities in developing countries through a review of recent literature on this topic. It begins by critiquing the view that global cities in developing countries are converging around a model of development similar to that of the prototypical global cities of the United States, Europe, and Japan. It argues that three emerging perspectives hold the key to an analysis that better accounts for local agency and divergent outcomes in such cities: a focus on the diversity of cities’ experience with globalization; recognition of the inherently negotiated nature of global impacts on urban outcomes; and a focus on actor-centered perspectives in urban analysis. The combined influence of these ideas amounts to a shift from a focus on global city ‘models’ to an examination of the interaction between global and local actors and institutions in a particular setting. Building on this literature review, the paper suggests an alternate framework for analyzing the link between global city development and inequality that focuses on three processes of change: the formation of public–private partnerships in urban governance, the spatial implications of the privatization of planning, and the flexiblization of labor. It argues that a focus on these processes has important implications for both theory and practice, as it allows us to understand similarity and difference in urban development, and more importantly, to understand the actors, institutions and interests that are driving change.

Challenges of Conducting Community-Based Participatory Research in Boston’s Neighborhoods to Reduce Disparities in Asthma

Boston is one of the preeminent health care and research centers in the world, but for much of its urban core, these resources are largely out of reach. Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) provides a model with the potential to bridge the gaps between its research prominence and the health of its residents. We report here two case studies of major research projects that were partnerships between universities in Boston and community based organizations and city agencies. The Healthy Public Housing Initiative (HPHI) and the Asthma Center on Community Environment and Social Stress (ACCESS) are projects that provide numerous lessons about the potential and challenges of conducting CBPR. Ensuring that the projects were true partnerships emerged as key issues in both, especially with respect to funding mechanisms and distribution of resources, although the nature of the challenges differed substantially in the two projects. We note that both academic and community partners may harbor stereotypes about the other and that generalizations about broad populations, academics or community members, may not apply well to everyone. Aligning objectives and expectations emerged as another key lesson. In HPHI, tension between service delivery and research was both a source of conflict and a source of creative development that led to divergent but interesting outcomes. In ACCESS, the tensions revolved more around community capacity building while attempting to build and maintain a large cohort for epidemiological investigations. We conclude that open and frank discussion and a transparent process upfront about project direction, finances, expectations, and other dimensions are necessary but not sufficient to address the inherent challenges in CBPR, and that even so, there are likely to be differences in perspective in such partnerships that require honest negotiation throughout the process of the project.

Extending injury prevention methodology to chemical terrorism preparedness: The Haddon Matrix and sarin

The Haddon Matrix offers a classic epidemiological model for studying injury prevention. This methodology places the public health concepts of agent, host, and environment within the three sequential phases of an injury-producing incident-pre-event, event, and postevent. This study uses this methodology to illustrate how it could be applied in systematically preparing for a mass casualty disaster such as an unconventional sarin attack in a major urban setting. Nineteen city, state, federal, and military agencies responded to the Haddon Matrix chemical terrorism preparedness exercise and offered feedback in the data review session. Four injury prevention strategies (education, engineering, enforcement, and economics) were applied to the individual factors and event phases of the Haddon Matrix. The majority of factors identified in all phases were modifiable, primarily through educational interventions focused on individual healthcare providers and first responders. The Haddon Matrix provides a viable means of studying an unconventional problem, allowing for the identification of modifiable factors to decrease the type and severity of injuries following a mass casualty disaster such as a sarin release. This strategy could be successfully incorporated into disaster planning for other weapons attacks that could potentially cause mass casualties.

Use of facial composite systems in US law enforcement agencies

Facial composite images are often used in the criminal investigation process to facilitate the search for and identification of someone who has committed a crime. Since the use of facial composite images is sometimes relied upon as an integral part of an investigation, it is important to ascertain information about the various decisions made and procedures implemented by law enforcement regarding the use of composites. A 39-item survey was developed to examine the prevalence of a number of procedures related to composite production, including the systems implemented, criteria for selecting systems, law enforcement training, satisfaction with systems, legal challenges, and procedural issues with respect to interviewing multiple witnesses and the distribution of composite images. Surveys were distributed to 1637 city, state and county law enforcement agencies nationwide; 163 completed surveys were returned. This paper summarizes our survey results and discusses the implications for investigative procedures, law enforcement training, and future research needs.

Preparation of biodiesel from waste cooking oil via two-step catalyzed process

Waste cooking oils (WCO), which contain large amounts of free fatty acids produced in restaurants, are collected by the environmental protection agency in the main cities of China and should be disposed in a suitable way. In this research, a two step catalyzed process was adopted to prepare biodiesel from waste cooking oil whose acid value was 75.92 ± 0.036 mgKOH/g. The free fatty acids of WCO were esterified with methanol catalyzed by ferric sulfate in the first step, and the triglycerides (TGs) in WCO were transesterified with methanol catalyzed by potassium hydroxide in the second step. The results showed that ferric sulfate had high activity to catalyze the esterification of free fatty acids (FFA) with methanol, The conversion rate of FFA reached 97.22% when 2 wt% of ferric sulfate was added to the reaction system containing methanol to TG in10:1 (mole ratio) composition and reacted at 95 °C for 4 h. The methanol was vacuum evaporated, and transesterification of the remained triglycerides was performed at 65 °C for 1 h in a reaction system containing 1 wt% of potassium hydroxide and 6:1 mole ratio of methanol to TG. The final product with 97.02% of biodiesel, obtained after the two step catalyzed process, was analyzed by gas chromatography. This new process has many advantages compared with the old processes, such as no acidic waste water, high efficiency, low equipment cost and easy recovery of the catalyst.

KAMEDO Report No. 83 European Union Summit in Göteborg, 2001

A European Union (EU) Summit in Göteborg, Sweden, was held 15-16 June 2001. This meeting presented various security and medical concerns to city officials. In preparation for a large meeting such as the EU Summit, a plan should be established that includes basic facts, management organization, and guidelines. Clear communication beteween city agencies also must be established. Hospital inventories should be recorded daily and reported to medical staff. A command center must be in place for police and medical command. An emergency medical provider should ride in each police vehicle, so in case of a riot situation, victims can be treated quickly. An information officer should be assigned with the task of providing information regarding the injured to the media.

ニューヨーク市の３ＢＩＤにおける街路景観整備の実態に関する考察

The purpose of this study is to understand the structure of streetscape improvement by Business Improve Districts (BIDs) in New York City. Three BIDs in New York City, including Grand Central Partnership, Alliance for Downtown New York, and Times Square Alliance, were selected as case studies. A series of interviews to the BID officials as well as field surveys was conducted in the year 2000 and 2005. The major findings are the following. a) Steetscape improvements by three BIDs are planned and implemented to promote districts interests through community-involved project processes, b) whlie the BIDsstreetscape improvement businesses are under the supervision of the city agencies, they are cooperating by sharing information, c) the BIDs can maintain high quality of streetscape design by flexibly appointing best-suited designers, d) budgetary condition of the BIDs is stable but not plentiful enough to proceed many streetscape improvement projects at once, and e) the effects of the streetscape improvement projects by the BIDs are evaluated mostly through indirect indexes.

Parallels between Community Oriented Policing and the War on Terrorism: Lessons Learned

As local law enforcement agencies shift towards a terrorism prevention strategy, they must develop programs, policies, and initiatives. Rather than create entirely new efforts, tactics and strategies from community policing may be customized and adopted to facilitate this strategy shift. These tactics, which could be easily modified to increase terrorism preparedness, include: community and gang intelligence systems, early warning systems, linkages between police and other city agencies, and crime analysis strategies. The lessons learned from the community policing literature, such as the importance of federal funding, the co‐production of safety, the development of multi‐jurisdictional task forces, and the role of the community, are presented.

The Core Drivers of CitiStat: It's Not Just About the Meetings and the Maps

ABSTRACT CitiStat—Baltimore's performance-management strategy—has been described by many different observers using a variety of different labels and attributing its effectiveness to a variety of different features. Yet, an examination of the underlying mechanisms by which the mayor's leadership team keeps the managers and employees of city agencies focused on improving specific outcomes, suggests a set of different hypotheses based on six core drivers: 1. the active engagement of the city's top executives; 2. the breadth, depth, disaggregation, and “nowness” of the data plus the thorough-ness of the analyses of these data; 3. the perseverence of the questioning, feedback, and follow-up (which is more persistent than relentless); 4. the consequences for both good, poor, and improved performance; 5. the focus on problem solving, continuous experimentation, and learning; and 6. the institutional memory of the city's top executives. None of the drivers in any of these hypotheses is sufficient to make a CitiStat strategy effective. None may even be necessary. Collectively, however, these core drivers contribute more to the effectiveness of this performance strategy than do the attributes found in other descriptions of CitiStat.

Legislation: NYC Adopts Pesticide Laws

Vol. 113, No. 10 EnvironewsOpen AccessLegislation: NYC Adopts Pesticide Laws Luz Claudio Luz Claudio Search for more papers by this author Published:1 October 2005https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.113-a662bAboutSectionsPDF ToolsDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InReddit In response to the growing evidence that chemical pesticide use has potential human health consequences, New York City has adopted two new laws that aim to reduce exposures to toxic pesticides. The pesticide phase-out under these laws, signed in May 2005, will be complete by November 2006.Under the NYC Pesticide Reduction Law, city agencies and their contractors must phase out the use on city property of pesticides that are known or suspected to cause cancer or developmental effects, and must adopt less toxic alternatives for pest control. Under the Neighbor Notification Law, the city must opt into a state law requiring that commercial lawn pesticide applicators provide 48 hours’ advance notice to adjacent neighbors before spraying pesticides on lawns, trees, and shrubs.“These bills put New York City at the forefront of the national effort to move pest control in a new direction, away from poisons and towards prevention,” says Laura Haight, senior environmental associate at the New York Public Interest Research Group, one of the organizations that spearheaded community-based campaigns for the laws.Pesticides are extensively used in densely populated cities. Cockroaches, mice, and rats thrive in multifamily dwellings, where excessive moisture, structural cracks and crevices, abundant food sources, crowded apartments, and overstuffed closets provide nutrition and shelter for pests. In the New York City metropolitan area—which in the late 1990s accounted for more than a quarter of the total pesticide use in the state—these conditions are magnified by the sheer size of the urban center, where more than 8 million people live in 800 square kilometers.“One of the most important potential effects from both laws may be the reduction of exposures to pesticides in schoolchildren,” says Claire Barnett, executive director of the Healthy Schools Network, an advocacy organization that helped push the laws through. It is expected that these laws could potentially reduce exposure to pesticides for over 1 million children in the city’s 1,500 public schools, as well as hundreds of thousands of other residents.What made the NYC Pesticide Reduction Law feasible is that there are effective alternatives to pesticide use, says Barbara Brenner, principal investigator of an NIEHS-funded study at the Center for Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Data published by Brenner’s group in the October 2003 EHP showed that reducing the breeding habitats for pests and using agents like boric acid that are nontoxic to humans effectively reduced cockroach infestation in an inner-city environment.Says Brenner, “Cockroach, mouse, and rat infestation is a very real and serious problem in both indoor and outdoor environments throughout New York City. . . . However, traditional chemical pesticide spraying has not controlled the problem, bringing with it health risks and hazards of its own. Recognition of this dilemma by New York City government represents official recognition of both the problem and the need to now use proven least-toxic methods.”City council member James Gennaro, who cosponsored both bills, says, “The active participation of community organizations and scientists were both vital to the success of this landmark legislation. . . . Frankly, I don’t believe this legislation would be law today without the involvement of these two essential groups.” He adds, “I firmly believe that this legislation will have tangible health benefits for large numbers of New York City residents.”FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 113, No. 10 October 2005Metrics About Article Metrics Publication History Originally published1 October 2005Published in print1 October 2005 Financial disclosuresPDF download License information EHP is an open-access journal published with support from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. All content is public domain unless otherwise noted. Note to readers with disabilities EHP strives to ensure that all journal content is accessible to all readers. However, some figures and Supplemental Material published in EHP articles may not conform to 508 standards due to the complexity of the information being presented. If you need assistance accessing journal content, please contact [email protected]. Our staff will work with you to assess and meet your accessibility needs within 3 working days.

Democratizing the Administrative State: Connecting Neighborhood Councils and City Agencies

Citizen participation in government decision making, especially at the local level, has received heightened attention with regard to its promise for improved governance. The overarching administrative ethos of the administrative state creates barriers to citizen participation in governance. Developing and nurturing citizen participation in the presence of the administrative state is a significant challenge. Drawing on the literary tradition of public engagement and learning, this article models a developmental strategy of participation that offers one avenue for achieving meaningful partnerships between city agencies and neighborhood councils in a metropolitan environment. We present a model of citizen participation that brings neighborhood councils and city agencies together in a collaborative partnership. This model is based on the literature on citizen participation, which focuses on the significance of interactive processes in building trust among participants and creating mutual understanding and agreement.

Collaboration with City Agencies: A Winning Approach to Community Assessment

Five graduate nursing students made a difference in the health of San Antonio citizens by conducting a community assessment as part of a standard clinical activity in their community health nursing course. The students and their professor were able to effect city-wide change for health protection and promotion through collaboration with the City of San Antonio Planning Department (CSAPD). By compiling information, linking organizations, and speaking before community groups about the importance of a fluoridated water supply, the students generated public interest and momentum, which resulted in a successful vote to add fluoride to the water supply. In addition, they were able to add to the assessment compiled by the Planning Department employees and increase the CSAPD's awareness of health concerns as an important area to assess within a community. The resulting assessment was more comprehensive than it would have been without the students' input. This use of collaboration provides a model other faculty may adopt for community assessment.

Polypharmacy and Possible Drug-Drug Interactions Among Diabetic Patients Receiving Home Health Care Services

SUMMARY Objectives: In this study, we examined the drug regimens of diabetic patients receiving home health care services to measure the prevalence of polypharmacy and to assess the likelihood of drug-drug interactions, a consequence of polypharmacy. Design: The sample consisted of 139 diabetic patients who received home health care services from one home health agency in a large mid-Atlantic city. The data were collected from March 1, 1998 to September 30, 1999. Information regarding medications was collected by the home health nurse during the initial home visit and was recorded on the medication sheet in the patient's clinical record. Any changes in medications were noted on the medication sheets. Methods: We identified all systemic medications prescribed for 139 home health patients. To assess drug-drug interactions, we used Micromedex® formulary DRUG-REAX® System. Outcomes: We calculated (1) the number of systemic medications taken, and (2) the number of possible severe, moderate, and mild drug-drug interactions. Results: We found that the average number of medications taken was 8.9 (SD 3.4) prescribed medications per day. Our results show that 38.8% of the patients in the sample could potentially be subject to at least one severe drug-drug interaction. Nearly all of the patients (92.8%) were at risk for moderate drug-drug interactions, and 70.5% could have mild drug-drug interactions. Conclusion: We conclude that polypharmacy is a concern for home health care patients with diabetes and the potential for drug-drug interactions is substantial. Our results indicate that the drug regimens of diabetic patients should be monitored systematically to avoid adverse events such as hospitalization. Family practitioners and home health care takers are in a unique position to identify polypharmacy and to modify drug regimens.

Neighborhood councils and city agencies: A model of collaborative coproduction

Neighborhood councils and city agencies: A model of collaborative coproduction

An Academic Model for Community-Based Research

Driven by the dual goals of training students to apply their research skills in a community setting and providing much needed research to local community and governmental agencies, three social science professors created a center to conduct community research. This address details the steps used to build clientele in the community and discusses how to integrate applied research with academic expectations. Three major issues are addressed. The first consists of building relationships with community entities to acquire the necessary opportunities for research and, in so doing, for finding the program. The second involves educating faculty colleagues and university administrators to provide institutional support for community research. The third concerns developing applied courses with minimal faculty that meet the academic demands of a university, while protecting the privacy needs and meeting the time constraints of community clients. Several outcomes attest to the success of this endeavor. These include an integrated undergraduate/graduate program in applied research; city agencies that make data-based decisions and contact the Center for program evaluations, population projections, needs assessments and data collection; and, shared respect and stronger relationships between the university and community.