Poor Neighborhoods Research Articles

Perceived neighborhood disorder as a moderator of the relationship between marijuana use and disinhibition in a sample of emerging adult African American females

Disinhibition is associated with myriad risk-taking behaviors and adverse outcomes. Both marijuana use and poor neighborhood conditions have been associated with disinhibition. However, the extent to which neighborhood disorder interacts with marijuana use to influence disinhibition has not been studied, extensively. A better understanding of these relationships has implications for designing more effective tailored place-based interventions that aim to reduce risk taking behaviors and related adverse social and health outcomes associated with marijuana use. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the interactive effects of perceived neighborhood disorder and marijuana use on disinhibition. The sample included 120 African American female residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods (Mage = 23.6 ± 3.46). We employed hierarchical linear regression analysis to examine the interactive effects of marijuana use and perceived neighborhood disorder on disinhibition, while controlling for age and education. The interaction term was marginally significant (b = 5.66; t(109) = 1.72, p = .08). Next, the conditional effects were explored. Results indicated the association of marijuana use with disinhibition was stronger for females in the higher neighborhood disorder group, compared to those in the lower neighborhood disorder group (10.40 and 4.51, respectively). Our findings support the need for more research on the potential of neighborhood disorder to amplify the effects of marijuana use on disinhibition and related neurobehavioral traits. The identification of contextual moderators and high-risk sub-groups will aid in the design of more tailored place-based interventions that aim to reduce risk-taking behavior among those most vulnerable.

Community-based mental health prevention strategy with older adults

The purpose of this study was to characterize the components required for the implementation of a community-based intervention strategy for mental health prevention in older adults in a poor neighborhood in the city of Temuco. The sample of the qualitative study was composed of 15 older adults, 2 neighborhood leaders, and 2 psychosocial interveners who have been working in the sector. The design corresponds to a case study, and semi-structured interviews guided by a guideline of topics and participant observation in activities carried out with older adults in a mental health and self-care workshop were used in the production of data. The data were interpreted through content analysis. The results show that the form of aging is characterized by loneliness and feelings of sadness, including in some cases tensions derived from family dynamics. There is also economic precariousness and difficulty in accessing health services. During the pandemic, they had to face various situations that increased their feelings of loneliness and helplessness. On the other hand, the results show that neighborhood strategies to support the elderly operate on a contingency basis, and are of an assistance type. On the other hand, there is little presence of services and interventions by professional teams of public policy programs focused on this population group. Among the priority needs of the people interviewed are social contact, breaking the routine, participating in collective recreational activities aimed at sharing with others, and developing workshops with external professionals that allow them to learn. In relation to the strategies that can contribute to a community-based intervention, the need for workshop-type group activities is identified, with a horizontal and close treatment of the professionals who dynamize them. These should be held regularly (weekly), with a personalized call, including the use of participatory and playful strategies and the possibility of developing handicrafts. The workshops are understood by the elderly as a space for socialization, mutual support and learning. According to the findings of the research, these workshops should be complemented with interventions and resources that promote healthy lifestyles and resources to adequately meet the needs of the elderly.

Women's “timepass”

AbstractIn a poor neighborhood of Delhi, women try to cope with unemployment among male breadwinners, and in so doing they often frame their practices as a way of passing time. From the long wait at service points to contentious involvements in work and politics, they depict a host of different and seemingly contradictory activities as meaningless idleness. My analysis of these discourses uncovers a wider pattern of minimizing in which women sometimes internalize and sometimes quietly oppose the constraints that limit what they can do with their time. In a gender landscape where public waiting has usually been associated with men destabilized by a lack of opportunities, women's conversations about lost time become a playing field for alienation, resilience, and subversion, even as the practices that hide underneath allow us a glance into their untold public involvements.

Midwest Ecological Study Outlined the Neighbourhood Literacy Environment and the Inequitable Access Children Have to Books in Public Library Branches

A Review of: Crosh, C., Hutton, J., Szumlas, G., Xu, Y., Beck, A., & Riley, C. (2022). Inequities in public library branch access and children’s book circulation in a Midwestern American city. The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion (IJIDI), 6(3), 68-81. https://doi.org/10.33137/ijidi.v6i4.38127 Objective – To explore the impact of the neighbourhood literacy environment (NLE) by examining associations between public library locations, book circulation rates, and neighbourhood racial composition. Design – An ecological study using aggregated data sources. Setting – Forty selected neighbourhood public libraries in the state of Ohio, United States of America. Subjects – Analysis of (1) existing circulation statistics from January 2014 to December 2018 for the neighbourhoods of Cincinnati and Hamilton Public Libraries; and (2) the American Community Survey (ACS) data from 2018. Methods – Among the key components studied for the population was the NLE, which the authors defined as access to literacy materials in a neighbourhood. The data the authors examined for the targeted populations were race, age, poverty level, and library location. The two groups of variables computed were: (1) the connection between circulation rates of children’s books and child poverty; (2) the connection between circulation statistics and the proportion of people who self-identify as Black in the neighbourhood. Additionally, the researchers used the Spearman’s rank order correlation coefficient (rs) to measure the relationships between the correlating variables within each neighbourhood library branch – number of books circulated per child; the census data of children who self-identified as Black; and the children who were designated as 20% below the federal poverty level (FPL). The Chi-square test was used to calculate associations between access to a library branch and child poverty in each neighborhood. In this study, the researchers only looked at the associations between variables at an aggregate level. The authors defined the terms they used in the study: (1) children were ages 0-18 years; (2) children’s books were literature intended for an audience from 0-18 years old; (3) the definition of poverty was taken from the U.S. Census and classified as neighborhoods with 20% of children below the FPL. Main Results – There were 40 library branches that served 81 neighbourhoods, of which there was only a 38% distribution in the high-poverty areas, compared with 58% for the low. Approximately 24 million books were circulated during the 5-year period of 2014 -2018. The median circulation rate per child at the neighbourhood level was 22 books. The results showed steep variations in circulation rates per child across branch locations; the numbers range from 3 to 98 books per child across neighborhoods. The authors indicated that the increases and decreases in the circulation rates were tied to branch location and the area’s socioeconomic status. The primary finding of the data analyzed was a negative correlation between the population identified as Black/African American and lower circulation rates in poorer neighbourhoods. Limitations identified by the authors were (1) the allocation of literacy resources per branch was unknown; (2) the in-library book user statistics in high-poverty neighbourhoods may not be accurately documented; (3) the precise allocations for literacy funds and the use of in-library resources for developing literacy skills need further study. Conclusion – The authors noted that race, economic status, and proximity to public libraries were pertinent factors in understanding inequitable access to books for children in the neighbourhoods studied. The NLE was an important dynamic beyond the home; the availability of books and engagement with them were contributing factors to the development of literacy skills. The associations observed between the variables indicated that improving the NLE matters and libraries must mindfully work to alleviate the disproportionately lower levels of access to books and their unfavorable outcome for children in low-income areas.

The Opioid Epidemic in the United States: Missed Opportunities and Policy Failures by Kant B. Patel and by Mark E. Rushefsky

The current opioid epidemic is a multifaceted phenomenon with no easy solutions in sight. With this text, Kant B. Patel and Mark E. Rushefsky provide a relatively comprehensive look at the development of the current crisis and the various efforts to combat it, with a keen eye towards the titular failures and oversights of government at all levels. The authors use a policy process frame throughout the book, making it appropriate for adoption in courses on drug policy or the policy process in general. Despite a few notable omissions, the book is thorough and appropriate for a variety of audiences. After setting out the policy process they use to frame the rest of the text, the authors begin in chapters 2 and 3 by reviewing the country’s first two opioid epidemics, the first in the late nineteenth century and the second beginning in the 1960s. In the first, blame lies primarily with little or no restrictions on opium imports and sales, allowing the expanded use of smoking opium and eventually allowing morphine and heroin to take root. Early efforts to combat these drugs included ineffective bans on imports, new regulations on the packaging and sale of narcotics, and new taxes such as the Harrison Act of 1914. Later during the second epidemic, efforts to curb a growing heroin epidemic centered on returning veterans from Vietnam as well as urban, poor, and Black neighborhoods. Ultimately, this second wave of efforts to combat opioid use led to the War on Drugs, which the authors rightly characterize as a policy failure in theory, as it was certainly effective in its enforcement, evident in skyrocketing incarceration rates and police budgets.

Exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect framework of residents' responses to urban neighborhood regeneration: The case of Shanghai, China

Neighborhood regeneration (NR) improves the living quality and environment of urban areas through the rehabilitation or renovation of dilapidated neighborhoods. In the current Chinese context, the NR is mostly dependent on governmental planning and funding. But due to the limitation of time and resources, it is impossible for the government to propose and dominate NR in every single dilapidated neighborhood. Therefore, promoting resident-initiated NR projects is an essential strategy for improving citizens' wellbeing and meeting the requirements of sustainability. However, in the dilapidated neighborhoods, the residents' cooperation in NR is not simply relied on their discourse power. Their choices of responses may be strongly influenced by various factors. Nevertheless, there have been few studies that examined the residents' choices of responses in NR. By adopting the “exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect (EVLN)” framework, this research aims to investigate how the relevant elements, including the perceived impact of NR, social capital, neighborhood environment, and residents' dependency, can influence residents' choice of responses. Two old neighborhoods in Shanghai were selected as the case study area. The data is collected through a questionnaire survey. The principal component analysis and multiple regression techniques are utilized to unveil the mask of their intrinsic relationship. The empirical results suggest how the above elements have impacted the residents' responses to NR to a certain extent. Notably, several key findings were revealed from the results. The residents with high-level dependency, perceived high-level social capital, and strong impact of NR are more likely to choose voice response. The low-level dependency, perceived poor neighborhood quality, and low social capital lead to the residents' exit choice. And the response of loyalty/neglect is due to the perceived good living environment, low-level social capital, and the ignorance of NR impact on their lives. Finally, some policy implications were drawn to promote the residents' active and positive action in initiating NR projects in their dilapidated neighborhoods.

Unwinding the tangle of adolescent pregnancy and socio-economic functioning: leveraging administrative data from Manitoba, Canada

BackgroundUnderstanding the relationship between adolescent pregnancy and adult education and employment outcomes is complicated due to the endogeneity of fertility behaviors and socio-economic functioning. Studies exploring adolescent pregnancy have often relied on limited data to measure adolescent pregnancy (i.e. birth during adolescence or self-reports) and lack access to objective measures of school performance during childhood.MethodsWe use rich administrative data from Manitoba, Canada, to assess women’s functioning during childhood (including pre-pregnancy academic performance), fertility behaviors during adolescence (live birth, abortion, pregnancy loss, or no history of pregnancy), and adult outcomes of high school completion and receipt of income assistance. This rich set of covariates allows calculating propensity score weights to help adjust for characteristics possibly predictive of adolescent pregnancy. We also explore which risk factors are associated with the study outcomes.ResultsWe assessed a cohort of 65,732 women, of whom 93.5% had no teen pregnancy, 3.8% had a live birth, 2.6% had abortion, and < 1% had a pregnancy loss. Women with a history of adolescent pregnancy were less likely to complete high school regardless of the outcome of that pregnancy. The probability of dropping out of high school was 7.5% for women with no history of adolescent pregnancy; after adjusting for individual, household, and neighborhood characteristics, the probability of dropping out of high school was 14.2 percentage points (pp) higher (95% CI 12.0-16.5) for women with live birth, 7.6 pp. higher (95% CI 1.5-13.7) for women with a pregnancy loss, and 6.9 pp. higher (95% CI 5.2-8.6) for women who had abortion. They key risk factors for never completing high school are poor or average school performance in 9th grade. Women who had a live births during adolescence were much more likely to receive income assistance than any other group in the sample. Aside from poor school performance, growing up in poor households and in poor neighborhoods were also highly predictive of receiving income assistance during adulthood.DiscussionThe administrative data used in this study enabled us to assess the relationship between adolescent pregnancy and adult outcomes after controlling for a rich set of individual-, household-, and neighborhood-level characteristics. Adolescent pregnancy was associated with higher risk of never completing high school regardless of the pregnancy outcome. Receipt of income assistance was significantly higher for women having a live birth, but only marginally higher for those who had a pregnancy that ended in loss or termination, underlining the harsh economic consequences of caring for a child as a young mother. Our data suggest that interventions targeting young women with poor or average school marks may be especially effective public policy priorities.

High-resolution patterns and inequalities in ambient fine particle mass (PM2.5) and black carbon (BC) in the Greater Accra Metropolis, Ghana

Growing cities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) experience high levels of ambient air pollution. However, sparse long-term city-wide air pollution exposure data limits policy mitigation efforts and assessment of the health and climate effects. In the first study of its kind in West Africa, we developed high resolution spatiotemporal land use regression (LUR) models to map fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon (BC) concentrations in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA), one of the fastest sprawling metropolises in SSA. We conducted a one-year measurement campaign covering 146 sites and combined these data with geospatial and meteorological predictors to develop separate Harmattan and non-Harmattan season PM2.5 and BC models at 100 m resolution. The final models were selected with a forward stepwise procedure and performance was evaluated with 10-fold cross-validation. Model predictions were overlayed with the most recent census data to estimate the population distribution of exposure and socioeconomic inequalities in exposure at the census enumeration area level. The fixed effects components of the models explained 48–69 % and 63–71 % of the variance in PM2.5 and BC concentrations, respectively. Spatial variables related to road traffic and vegetation explained the most variability in the non-Harmattan models, while temporal variables were dominant in the Harmattan models. The entire GAMA population is exposed to PM2.5 levels above the World Health Organization guideline, including even the Interim Target 3 (15 μg/m3), with the highest exposures in poorer neighborhoods. The models can be used to support air pollution mitigation policies, health, and climate impact assessments. The measurement and modelling approach used in this study can be adapted to other African cities to bridge the air pollution data gap in the region.

Review of “Stacked Decks: Building Inspectors and the Reproduction of Urban Inequality”

SStacked Decks provides a fresh look at the work of building inspectors. Chicago, where Bartram’s research takes place, is one of the most racially segregated cities in America, with deep pockets of concentrated poverty. Not surprisingly, building conditions vary significantly among neighborhoods, and 3-1-1 nonemergency calls for service about building conditions often originate from poor, disinvested neighborhoods—areas where substandard housing is most concentrated. Yet inspectors cite fewer building code violations in poor neighborhoods than one would expect based on these calls, and far more in wealthy neighborhoods. The book starts by asking: What explains the divergence between calls and violations? Bartram argues that inspectors have wide discretion over which code violations are (and are not) issued citations. They neither assess all buildings the same way nor do they record or follow-up on all violations they see. Stacked Decks is a much-needed examination of how inspectors make sense of complex situations, and how their sense of deservingness influences their judgment.

Guests, Hosts and Parasites: Deviant Hospitality in Katherena Vermette’s The Break

“The Break” is the name given to a strip of empty land in a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Winnipeg, the provincial capital of Manitoba and the setting of Katherena Vermette début novel. It is also the place where, on a winter’s night, a group of assailants caught up with a thirteen-year-old Indigenous girl and raped her within earshot of the neighbouring houses. The novel’s choral composition relies on alternating viewpoints to throw light on the assault’s circumstances, the factors that turned into a catalyst for the rape, and a combination of facts which, even as it is slowly revealed, blurs the line between victim and perpetrator. The crime and its antecedents are initially envisaged from within the Indigenous and Métis community, but the characters’ lives are also replaced in the wider context of the colonial history that has shaken the foundations of home and homeland for Canada’s First Nations. In The Break, storytelling and story listening both necessitate the taking into account of entropy, i.e. the parasitic interference or white noise caused by transmission, especially when vast distances separate the teller from the audience invited to listen in. To understand the various regimes and functions of hospitability in Vermette’s novel, the essay will be relying on the theory of communication Michel Serres develops while relying on the paradigm of the parasite, an organism that feeds on another without giving anything in return, so as to modelize relations between strangers who occupy the same space without sharing it.

Tania León's Stride: A Polyrhythmic Life by Alejandro L. Madrid

Reviewed by: Tania León's Stride: A Polyrhythmic Life by Alejandro L. Madrid Jade Kastel Tania León's Stride: A Polyrhythmic Life. By Alejandro L. Madrid. (Music in American Life.) Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. [xvi, 249 p. ISBN 9780252043949 (hardcover), $110; ISBN 9780252086014 (paperback), $24.95; ISBN 9780252052873 (e-book), price varies.] Music examples, photographs, bibliography, appendixes, index. The first comprehensive biography of composer, conductor, and educator Tania León (b. 1943) is arriving at a peak moment, an accented stride if you will, in León's career. She has been selected as an honoree in the 45th Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in December 2022—a celebration set to occur several months following the writing of this review. As attendees and viewers watch her don the familiar rainbow ribbon, it will likely ignite a desire for the back-story of this creative genius. Alejandro L. Madrid's biography is waiting to satiate this intrigue, chronicling León's journey from a poor neighborhood in Cuba, to accompanying the Dance Theatre of Harlem, to her conducting lessons with Leonard Bernstein, to collaborations with the American Composers Orchestra's series Sonidos de las Américas at Carnegie Hall, and to the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her orchestral work Stride. Tania León's Stride: A Polyrhythmic Life is one of more than 250 books in the longstanding series Music in American Life published by the University of Illinois Press. Madrid uses the introduction to explain how he chose the metaphor of counterpoint as a bibliographical form for this book, to place events in León's life in conversation with and show their relationship to significant historical and musical moments (p. 3). Just as rules and parameters undergird counterpoint exercises and compositions, Madrid and León likewise negotiated the project's scope and compositional parameters for how cultural, political, and personal events would work together in the biography. They arrived at some concrete rules, like leaving candid statements from friends or family still living in Cuba out of the book to avoid putting individuals at risk (p. 5). Madrid titled the chapters after musical motives to symbolize aspects of León's experiences (p. 7). Chapters are not arranged chronologically, allowing Madrid's counterpoint to position events side by side to show how a motif was present at various stages in León's life. The first chapter, "Tonic," as one might guess, includes home, family, and León's musical upbringing in the midst of the Cuban revolution in the 1960s. Photos of her grandparents (p. 16), eight-year-old León at the piano (p. 21), and a postcard from her piano teacher visiting Paris (p. 24) help illustrate the milieu of León's childhood in Cuba. "Modulation and Displacement" leans into the tensions between cubanos de adentro (Cubans residing on the island) and cubanos de afuera (Cubans living abroad). León's life modulated when she left Cuba as an exile, signaling an era when neither the US nor Cuba felt like a home key. The sadness and struggle of displacement is a theme throughout the book. Her passport was canceled as a result of leaving on one of the Vuelos de la Libertad (Freedom Flights; p. 35), which in turn led to León's missing the funeral of one of her foundational family figures, [End Page 407] her grandmother Mamota (p. 37). A section titled "1979: Seven Days That Shook Tania León" tells of her emotional return to Cuba to see her family for the first time in twelve years (p. 39). It was during this trip that León discovered how the Castro government silenced the accomplishments of creative exiles. León was determined to avoid taking sides in Cuban politics. Despite her apolitical stance, "her name and artist activities were still rendered invisible" in Cuba (p. 41). The 1970s feminist adage that "the personal is political" is a reality that León experienced all too frequently. Despite León's dislike of identity labels and her desire to remain neutral on the polarizing topic of the Cuban revolution—an effort to protect her family in Cuba...

When The Photos Don’t Tell The Whole Story

From The Publisher Health AffairsVol. 42, No. 3: Public Health During COVID-19 & More When The Photos Don’t Tell The Whole StoryRabih Torbay AffiliationsRabih Torbay is president and CEO of Project HOPE, in Washington, D.C.PUBLISHED:March 2023Free Accesshttps://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2023.00016AboutSectionsView PDFPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsDownload Exhibits TOPICSHealth professionalsClinicsAccess to careHealth disparitiesGlobal healthWhen you picture the aftermath of a hurricane, what comes to mind? Maybe it’s the stark images of damage we see on the news: boats overturned, neighborhoods flooded, debris strewn throughout communities. But it’s probably not the man who lost his only supply of insulin, the senior whose hypertension medication washed away, or the new mom who lost the formula her infant desperately needs. Rabih TorbayPhotograph by Project HOPEWhat about an earthquake? The physical devastation of collapsed buildings, fallen homes, and deadly rubble is a terrible, familiar story. But equally tragic are the rural families, such as those Project HOPE reached in Haiti, who lost their only clinic and now must carry their children on foot for miles to find care.Even the harrowing footage from a war zone doesn’t capture health workers’ intense stress and trauma. A photo of a humanitarian crisis doesn’t show the patient with HIV who must choose between her antiretrovirals and her next meal. A video of an undernourished child doesn’t show the chronic health conditions he may have for life.Yet all of these hidden damages—the health impacts we don’t see—have a profound effect on global health.In December 2022 I visited Florida to learn from Project HOPE’s local partners how Hurricane Ian continued to affect their communities months after the storm hit. Hearing their stories underscored to me how different the picture on the ground can be from what is portrayed when the coverage focuses only on the most visible damage.News coverage had frustrated them, they told me, because it mostly showed overturned yachts and flooded mansions, which left viewers wondering why they should donate to the hurricane response. What the coverage didn’t show were poor neighborhoods nearby that were desperate for relief. “We must accurately convey the true and deep challenges that many have and are still experiencing despite the yachts and million-dollar homes being shown on the news,” one local aid worker told me.I heard similar stories in Ukraine and Ethiopia, where amid the horrifying scenes of war and humanitarian crisis there was a tidal wave of health needs that was not being shown to the world.This is not just a problem during complex emergencies or natural disasters: COVID-19 underscored how hard it can be to see health inequities even when they happen in our own neighborhoods.In every context I’ve seen, the solution comes through health workers. Local health workers are the cornerstone of every resilient health system, and the best way to address hidden health inequities is to strengthen their capacity—to provide them with the medicines, equipment, training, and other support they need. This is an urgent call to action: With the world facing a critical shortage of health workers, we cannot afford not to make these investments.Health workers are the ones who see and feel what we can’t and who know best the needs of their own communities. That’s why much of Project HOPE’s work, both during emergencies and at other times, focuses on equipping health workers with the tools they need to close the gaps in access to care.In Ukraine that work might look like trauma trainings, psychological first aid, vehicles, or hospital rehabilitations. In Ethiopia it might be a mobile medical clinic that can reach a rural community. In charitable clinics across the US South, it might mean providing the support to hire community health workers who know how to provide vaccines in a context with which their patients are comfortable.Supporting health workers has been core to Project HOPE’s mission since our founding sixty-five years ago. It is essential to our work in every context, on every continent. And in a world where health workers are facing more crises, it’s more important than ever.When it comes to health care access, you can’t always believe your eyes. The most serious problems might be the hardest to see, and the best way to address them is by supporting those who see them every day. Loading Comments... Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. DetailsExhibitsReferencesRelated Article Metrics History Published online 6 March 2023 Information© 2023 Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.PDF download

The Criminal Governance of Tourism: Extortion and Intimacy in Medellín

AbstractThis article provides a picture of the political economy of tourism and violence in Medellín. It analyses the way criminal actors and tourism entrepreneurs share a territory, by shedding light on the extortion of tour guides, street performers and business owners in some of its barrios populares (poor neighbourhoods). The main objective is to demonstrate how intimate relationships – between and among kin, friends, long-term acquaintances – impact what is considered the criminal governance of tourism. This contribution shows that extortion in Medellín meets only limited resistance from tourism entrepreneurs. It also emphasises how criminals, tourism actors and tourists themselves contribute to the creation of fragile secured spaces in the developing touristscapes of Colombia's second city.

My brilliant city: Naples, urban poverty and the ‘ethnographic imagination’ of Elena Ferrante

ABSTRACT Elena Ferrante’s ‘Neapolitan Novels’, published in English between 2012 and 2015, tell the coming-of-age story of two women born in a poor neighbourhood in post-war Naples. The international success of this four-part series of novels – named in the Italian edition after the title of the first novel, L’amica geniale (‘My Brilliant Friend’) – testifies to the enduring popularity of the urban poor of Naples as a literary subject. This article discusses several key issues of urban poverty that emerge from the series (i.e. social exclusion, ghettoization, widespread illegality, endemic violence and women’s oppression) and analyses how they are narrated, drawing on two classic texts of ethnographic scholarship: Thomas Belmonte’s The Broken Fountain (1979) and Italo Pardo’s Managing Existence in Naples (1996). In doing so, it reconsiders Ferrante’s narrative from a socio-anthropological perspective and assesses her ‘ethnographic imagination’ vis-à-vis two opposing tendencies in the literature about the urban poor of Naples: one geared towards stigmatization and the other towards romanticization. The article thus argues that the ‘Neapolitan Novels’ offer a refreshing take on a deeply stereotyped subject, countering (at least in part) the process of ‘othering’ that traditionally affects the literary representation of Naples’ urban poor.

Solid Waste Collection in the Informal Settlements of African Cities: a Regulatory Dilemma for Actor’s Participation and Collaboration in Kampala

Formal and informal institutions exist to regulate actors providing solid waste collection services in African cities, yet collection coverage remains low. The study examines the role of institutions in enabling and/or constraining actors’ participation and collaboration in solid waste collection in Kampala City. A qualitative methodological approach is employed by conducting in-depth interviews, focused group discussions, and reviewing documents. A dilemma in waste regulation manifests. Whereas regulations favour formal actors, informal actors predominantly provide waste collection services in poor neighbourhoods. Stringent requirements for participation and discriminatory bylaws are exposed. The interplay between formal and informal actors is vibrant but not legally supported. Therefore, it is prudent for effective planning to accommodate the operations of formal and informal actors and their interface to ensure smart cities. This might encourage participation and enable actors’ collaboration, consequently reducing uncollected waste volumes and illegal waste disposal sites in the informal settlements.

Individual, interpersonal and environmental correlates of sedentary behaviours in adults with intellectual disabilities.

Sedentary behaviours have adverse health outcomes and adults with intellectual disabilities are at a higher risk of unhealthy lifestyle behaviours. The lack of knowledge relating to sedentary behaviours in adults with intellectual disabilities has impeded the development of effective interventions. This study aimed to investigate individual, interpersonal and environmental correlates that are associated with sedentary behaviours in adults with intellectual disabilities. A secondary analysis of data from The UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society; collected 2011-2013) was conducted. Twenty-two predictor variables were included in a stepwise logistic regression, with TV hours during weekdays (≤3 and >3h/day) used as a proxy for sedentary behaviours. A sample of 266 adults, with mean age of 37.9 and range from 18 to 49years old, with intellectual disabilities were identified. Because 63.9% were female, 62.4% had children and 28.2% were employed, the sample is likely to be most representative of more able adults with intellectual disabilities. A significant interaction term between having children and neighbourhood status was found in the initial model so separate models for good and poor-quality neighbourhoods are reported. Having children only had a significant effect to lower the odds of high TV time among participants living in good quality neighbourhoods (OR 0.10, 95% CI 0.03, 0.25). However, for people living in poor quality neighbourhoods it was better quality leisure services that was associated with lower odds of high TV time (OR 0.48, 95% CI 0.23, 0.90). Being employed only significantly reduced the odds of high TV time in the good quality neighbourhood model (OR 0.35, 95% CI 0.12, 0.78). These effects highlight the importance of environmental effects on lifestyle behaviours of adults with intellectual disabilities. Future research should aim to expand our understanding of environmental effects on the sedentary behaviours and other lifestyle behaviours of adults with intellectual disabilities.

The Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism

The Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism

Public healthcare (in)accessibility for TB patients: a slum's-eye view.

The government healthcare system unintentionally excludes the destitute in several ways. In this article, a "slum's-eye" perspective on the public healthcare system is offered through reflections on stories of tuberculosis patients in urban poor neighbourhoods. We hope these stories contribute to discourse on how to strengthen the public healthcare system and make it more accessible for all, especially the poor.

Toplocatie aan het water? Een ruimtelijke analyse van de invloed van sociaaleconomische status en woonplaats op de verspreiding van en sterfte door cholera in Maastricht tijdens het epidemiejaar 1866

The final dreadful cholera epidemic of the nineteenth century, that of 1866, caused clear disparities in mortality across the different social classes in the city of Maastricht. The mayor of Maastricht recognized a clear causal link between the lifestyle of the lower classes and their disproportionally high mortality rates compared to the upper classes. However, the literature generally deems cholera a non-discriminatory disease – one that affects age groups, sexes, and social classes indiscriminately. The disease, once contracted, could be very lethal among the upper classes as well. Thus, the question remains, what caused higher mortality among the lower classes; was it the impact of social status, or did other, environmental, factors weigh in? To gain a more detailed understanding of the 1866 cholera epidemic and understand which factors were important in relation to socioeconomic disparities, this article uses unique data on the deceased and surviving victims. The analysis focuses on demographic and spatial characteristics of the victims. We conclude that residence close to the waterways was a high-risk factor for cholera. Socioeconomic status in itself was only slightly related to the spread of cholera because the poorest neighbourhoods were in the proximity of these waterways.

Neighborhood characteristics and arterial stiffness among Black adults - Results from the Jackson Heart Study and Morehouse-Emory Cardiovascular Center for Health Equity.

Poor quality neighborhood environments are independent risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) but are understudied in Black adults, who face large CVD health disparities. Arterial stiffness, a marker of early vascular aging, precedes development of hypertension and adverse CVD events but the effect of neighborhood on arterial stiffness among Black adults remains unknown. We compared the association between neighborhood environment and arterial stiffness among Black adults in Jackson, MS and Atlanta, GA. We studied 1582 Black adults (mean age 53 ± 10, 35% male) living in Jackson, MS from the Jackson Heart Study (JHS) and 451 Black adults (mean age 53 ± 10, 39% male) living in Atlanta, GA from the Morehouse-Emory Cardiovascular Center for Health Equity (MECA) study, without known CVD. Neighborhood problems (includes measures of aesthetic quality, walking environment, food access), social cohesion (includes activity with neighbors), and violence/safety were assessed using validated questionnaires. Arterial stiffness was measured as pulse wave velocity (PWV) using magnetic resonance imaging in JHS and as PWV and augmentation index (AIx) using applanation tonometry (SphygmoCor, Inc.) in MECA. Multivariable linear regression models were used to examine the association between neighborhood characteristics and arterial stiffness, adjusting for potential confounders. Improved social characteristics, measured as social cohesion in JHS (β = -0.32 [-0.63, -0.02], p = 0.04) and activity with neighbors (β = -0.23 [-0.40, -0.05], p = 0.01) in MECA, were associated with lower PWV in both cohorts and lower AIx (β = -1.74 [-2.92, - 0.56], p = 0.004) in MECA, after adjustment for CVD risk factors and income. Additionally, in MECA, better food access (β = -1.18 [-2.35, - 0.01], p = 0.05) was associated with lower AIx and, in JHS, lower neighborhood problems (β = -0.33 [-0.64, - 0.02], p = 0.04) and lower violence (β = -0.30 [-0.61, 0.002], p = 0.05) were associated with lower PWV. Neighborhood social characteristics show an independent association with the vascular health of Black adults, findings that were reproducible in two distinct American cities.