Spatial association of respiratory health with social and environmental factors: case study of Cook County, Illinois, USA

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Aynaz Lotfata ◽  
Alexander Hohl
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aynaz Lotfata ◽  
Alexander Hohl

AbstractBackgroundPeople who live with respiratory diseases like asthma are more likely at risk of serious illness. Spatial analytic techniques allow for discovering areas of concern and finding correlates of asthma prevalence.ObjectiveThere is growing interest in disentangling the impacts of socioeconomic and environmental factors on respiratory health, their spatial correlation, and the demographic profile of people at risk of respiratory diseases. It is important to know how people with asthma are geographically distributed and what social and environmental factors correlate with asthma. Thereby, the purpose of the study is to describe socioeconomic factors associated with asthma prevalence in Cook County, IL and to identify the significant risks and the protective factors to control asthma.Data and MethodsData obtained from CDC 2018 SVI, ACS, the City of Chicago Data Portal, HealthData.gov, and ESRI. In this paper, we illustrate the usefulness of geospatial regression analysis in the analysis and presentation of spatially distributed asthma prevalence among the population with disabilities, minorities with the language barrier, nonwhite population, age 17 and younger, and age 65 and older in the census tracts of Cook County, IL where Chicago Metropolitan Area located. In addition, we map the spatial variation of asthma prevalence with variation in the tree canopy, access to medical centers, air quality, and household quality. Lastly, we used bivariate mapping to illustrate the spatial distributions of residential land use and tree covers.ResultsOur findings show a good correlation between asthma and socioeconomic and physical factors including age 17 and younger, age 65 and older, population with disabilities, a minority with the language barrier, tree canopy, access to medical centers, air quality, and household quality. The aged 65 and older, 17 and younger, and people with disabilities are found to have a higher asthma prevalence in areas around the industrial corridors in southeast and west sides of Cook County, IL. Results may guide further decisions in planning for asthma research and intervention, especially for identifying vulnerable areas and people.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Mamane ◽  
Jean-François Tessier ◽  
Ghislaine Bouvier ◽  
Roger Salamon ◽  
Pierre Lebailly ◽  
...  

Background and Objective. Environmental factors are an increasing concern for respiratory health in developing countries. The objective of this study was to investigate whether Nigerien people living in cultivated areas have more respiratory symptoms than those living in pastoral areas. Method. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2013 in two populations during the rainy season when land is cultivated. Environmental factors including pesticide use and respiratory symptoms were collected in adults and children during face-to-face interviews. Multivariate analysis between exposures and symptoms was performed in children and in adults separately. Results. The study included 471 adults and 229 children. Overall, none of the households reported the use of pesticides for agricultural purposes. However, 87.2% reported the use of insecticides at home. Multivariate analysis showed that people living in agricultural areas compared to those in pastoral areas had an increased risk of respiratory symptoms in adults (wheezing, dyspnea, sudden shortness of breath, and cough without fever) and in children (cough without fever). The use of insecticides showed no effect on respiratory symptoms after adjustment. Conclusion. This first epidemiological study on the environment and respiratory health conducted in Niger demonstrates a significant relationship between respiratory manifestations and the agricultural characteristics of the living area. However only the effect of insecticides in the home on respiratory health was observed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdu Kamil

Abstract Background: Entrepreneurship is essential in creating, fulfilling and forming a healthy economy. This study is conducted to investigate Factor Affecting on Entrepreneurial Intention: The case study on Wollo University Students. Some studies have been done in this area but only a few were conducted in Ethiopia. This research aims to address the gap that exists due to the weakness of previous studies to verify the factors that affect entrepreneurial intention and provide more clarification on the topic. Methods: For the purpose of this study explanatory research design was employed. The researcher used stratified random sampling to classify all participants into seven colleges and one school of law. From each stratum proportionally by using purposive sampling to select 226 respondents with graduate students from college of business and economics for the desire of the study. Both primary and secondary data were collected. Primary data were collected through structured questionnaire from 210 students. Secondary data were collected from previous studies and used as reference. Results: The correlation and regression analysis has been applied to see the relationship and how independent variables influence entrepreneurial intention. From the analyses it is confirmed that demographic factors have statistically insignificant effect on entrepreneurial intention, while personal factors, environmental factors and family background have a statistically significant effect on entrepreneurial intention. Conclusions: Based on the findings it is concluded that demographic factor does not affect entrepreneurial intention while personal factors, environmental factors and family background affect entrepreneurial intention.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 538-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianping Fan ◽  
Weizhen Yue ◽  
Meiqin Wu

AbstractThe conventional data envelopment analysis (DEA) measures the relative efficiency of decision making units (DMUs) consuming multiple inputs to produce multiple outputs under the assumption that all the data are exact. In the real world, however, it is possible to obtain interval data rather than exact data because of various limitations, such as statistical errors and incomplete information, et al. To overcome those limitations, researchers have proposed kinds of approaches dealing with interval DEA, which either use traditional DEA models by transforming interval data into exact data or get an efficiency interval by using the bound of interval data. In contrast to the traditional approaches above, the paper deals with interval DEA by combining traditional DEA models with error propagation and entropy, uses idea of the modified cross efficiency to get the ultimate cross efficiency of DMUs in the form of error distribution and ranks DMUs using the calculated ultimate cross efficiency by directional distance index. At last we illustrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method by applying it to measure energy efficiency of regions in China considering environmental factors.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tohru Ohnuma ◽  
Heii Arai

Shared psychotic disorder, characterized by shared delusion among two or more subjects (termed “Folie à deux,” “trois,” etc.), is often associated with strong religious beliefs or social isolation, factors creating strong psychological sympathy. Recently, we treated a rare familial case of “Folie à quatre” in central Tokyo without such influences. The proband was a schizophrenia patient and younger brother within monozygotic twins. Positive symptoms were “transmitted” to remaining family members, his elder brother, mother, and father father, in a relatively short period of three months. Although the pathophysiology of these positive symptoms (delusions and hallucinations) remains unclear, the transmission pattern suggests the primacy of social and environmental factors (and/or their interaction), while genetics appeared less influential in this “Folie à famille.” Although undiagnosed psychoses in the whole family cannot be excluded, they did not share the other negative schizophrenia symptoms of the proband. A strong familial connection appeared to be the most important factor for the common delusion and hallucination.


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