scholarly journals COVID-19 and the City: A Healthy City Strategy for Pandemic Challenges, from Planning to Action

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamzah Hasyim ◽  
Patricia Dale
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Respiratory Disease ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Healthy City ◽  
Urban Model ◽  
Health Agencies ◽  
Narrative Literature ◽  
Narrative Literature Review ◽  
The City ◽  
Health Experts

COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, a new coronavirus discovered in 2019. WHO declared COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 as a pandemic that the detection level of cases changed daily, and it can track almost in real-time. This paper used a narrative literature review to address issues of urban quality and lack of exercise. The specific aim was to discuss the concept of a healthy city, indicate a new urban model, and advocate for the increased use of bicycles, outdoor gym/outdoor exercise, walking to reducing pollution, and improving physical, psychological, and social fitness. A healthy city can improve residents’ health by improving conditions of life to face COVID-19 pandemics. It needs the local capacity to prevent the spread of the diseases and design public health concepts concerning the built environment and contemporary towns in a new urban model. Dialogue opportunities in public health can provide essential guidance for designers (architects and town planners), decision-makers, public health experts, and health agencies locally, promoting the actions and policies to transform the city into a healthier neighborhood and salutogenesis.

scholarly journals Tracking COVID-19 Discourse on Twitter in North America: Topic Modeling and Aspect-based Sentiment Analysis (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyeju Jang ◽  
Emily Rempel ◽  
David Roth ◽  
Giuseppe Carenini ◽  
Naveed Z. Janjua
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
North America ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Public Health Agencies ◽  
Human In The Loop ◽  
Health Agencies ◽  
Health Experts

BACKGROUND Social media is a rich source where we can learn about people’s reactions to social issues. As COVID-19 has significantly impacted on people’s lives, it is essential to capture how people react to public health interventions and understand their concerns. OBJECTIVE We aim to investigate people’s reactions and concerns about COVID-19 in North America, especially focusing on Canada. METHODS We analyze COVID-19 related tweets using topic modeling and aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA), and interpret the results with public health experts. To generate insights on the effectiveness of specific public health interventions for COVID-19, we compare timelines of topics discussed with timing of implementation of interventions, synergistically including information on people’s sentiment about COVID-19 related aspects in our analysis. In addition, to further investigate anti-Asian racism, we compare timelines of sentiments for Asians and Canadians. RESULTS Topic modeling identified 20 topics and public health experts provided interpretations of the topics based on top-ranked words and representative tweets for each topic. The interpretation and timeline analysis showed that the discovered topics and their trend are highly related to public health promotions and interventions, such as physical distancing, border restrictions, hand washing, staying-home, and face coverings. After training the data using ABSA with human-in-the-loop, we obtained 545 aspect terms (e.g., “vaccines”, “economy”, and “masks”) and 60 opinion terms (e.g., “infectious”- negative, and “professional”- positive), which were used for inference of sentiments of 20 selected aspects. The results showed negative sentiments related to overall outbreak, misinformation, and Asians and positive sentiments related to physical distancing. CONCLUSIONS Analyses using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques with domain expert involvement can produce useful information for public health. This study is the first to analyze COVID-19 related tweets in Canada in comparison with tweets in the United States by using topic modeling and human-in-the-loop domain-specific aspect-based sentiment analysis. This kind of information could help public health agencies to understand public concerns as well as what public health messages are resonating in our populations who use Twitter, which can be helpful for public health agencies when designing a policy for new interventions.

scholarly journals Tracking COVID-19 Discourse on Twitter in North America: Infodemiology Study Using Topic Modeling and Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis

10.2196/25431 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. e25431
Author(s):  
Hyeju Jang ◽  
Emily Rempel ◽  
David Roth ◽  
Giuseppe Carenini ◽  
Naveed Zafar Janjua
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
North America ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Public Health Agencies ◽  
Human In The Loop ◽  
Health Agencies ◽  
Health Experts

Background Social media is a rich source where we can learn about people’s reactions to social issues. As COVID-19 has impacted people’s lives, it is essential to capture how people react to public health interventions and understand their concerns. Objective We aim to investigate people’s reactions and concerns about COVID-19 in North America, especially in Canada. Methods We analyzed COVID-19–related tweets using topic modeling and aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA), and interpreted the results with public health experts. To generate insights on the effectiveness of specific public health interventions for COVID-19, we compared timelines of topics discussed with the timing of implementation of interventions, synergistically including information on people’s sentiment about COVID-19–related aspects in our analysis. In addition, to further investigate anti-Asian racism, we compared timelines of sentiments for Asians and Canadians. Results Topic modeling identified 20 topics, and public health experts provided interpretations of the topics based on top-ranked words and representative tweets for each topic. The interpretation and timeline analysis showed that the discovered topics and their trend are highly related to public health promotions and interventions such as physical distancing, border restrictions, handwashing, staying home, and face coverings. After training the data using ABSA with human-in-the-loop, we obtained 545 aspect terms (eg, “vaccines,” “economy,” and “masks”) and 60 opinion terms such as “infectious” (negative) and “professional” (positive), which were used for inference of sentiments of 20 key aspects selected by public health experts. The results showed negative sentiments related to the overall outbreak, misinformation and Asians, and positive sentiments related to physical distancing. Conclusions Analyses using natural language processing techniques with domain expert involvement can produce useful information for public health. This study is the first to analyze COVID-19–related tweets in Canada in comparison with tweets in the United States by using topic modeling and human-in-the-loop domain-specific ABSA. This kind of information could help public health agencies to understand public concerns as well as what public health messages are resonating in our populations who use Twitter, which can be helpful for public health agencies when designing a policy for new interventions.

An Unobtrusive Important Issue in the World, Female Suicide

2014 ◽  
pp. 115-146
Author(s):  
Semra Günay Aktaş
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Female Suicide ◽  
The World ◽  
Time Region ◽  
Commit Suicide ◽  
Health Experts

Suicide is a complex structure and also affects the families of the person who commit suicide, health care professionals and society. Suicide shows large differences depending on the time, region, age level, gender and race. Suicides are chaotic events because a little confusion on one of each these factors may cause a significant change that leads to severe consequences. Chaos theorists believe that the first step to deal with chaos is to understand it. Therefore, all aspects of suicide need to be understood in detail in order to prevent it. Strategies to prevent suicide can be developed through searching and understanding the suicide geography. In this chapter, the spatial pattern of female suicide is examined with suicide maps. With suicide maps, the aim is to clarify the spatial alteration of the deaths caused by female suicide, to help in focusing on female suicide, to increase the awareness of the specific regions and groups that have a high risk and so to guide the ones who are dealing with decreasing the death ratios, public health experts and decision makers.

scholarly journals Os casos de Chikungunya e sua relação com as condições climáticas do município de João Pessoa, PB

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2595
Author(s):  
Anne Falcão de Freitas ◽  
Joel Silva Dos Santos ◽  
Eduardo Rodrigues Viana De Lima
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Aedes Aegypti ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Viral Disease ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Relative Air Humidity ◽  
The Family ◽  
The City

Chikungunya (CHIKV) é uma doença viral pertencente à família Togaviridae trasmitida principalmente nas áreas urbanas pelo mosquito Aedes aegypti. Pesquisas apontam que surtos recentes da CHIKV podem está relacionada com a sazonalidade, como exemplo João Pessoa, PB, representando uma emergência na saúde pública e de estudos para compreender a sua ocorrência nessa região. Dessa forma, esta pesquisa se apresenta com o objetivo de estudar a dispersão dos casos de Chikungunya e a sua relação com o clima urbano na cidade de João Pessoa/PB. Para isso, foram coletados dados dos casos de Chikungunya junto a Secretária de Saúde do munícipio visando quantificar os casos da doença por bairros da área de estudo. Também foram coletados os dados referentes clima (temperatura, umidade relativa do ar e pluviosidade), da área de estudo, a partir dos dados do Instituto Nacional de Metereologia-INMET, com posterior relação com os casos de CHIKV, por meio de gráficos. A periodicidade de coleta dos dados consistiu em 2015 a 2017, levando em consideração períodos de estiagem e chuvoso. Os resultados revelam que os casos de Chikungunya foram registrados especialmente nos bairros: Cristo, Cruz das Armas, Mandacaru, Mangabeira, Oitizeiro, Torre e Varjão. Dessa forma, pode-se afirmar que as condições climáticas juntamente com as atividades humanas proporcionam o desenvolvimento do mosquito com consequente transmissão da doença. Sendo assim, torna-se imprescindível essa compreensão para a promoção de políticas públicas de prevenção que possa auxiliar os tomadores de decisão na gestão da saúde pública do município. The cases of Chikungunya and its relationship with the climatic conditions of the municipality of João Pessoa, PBA B S T R A C TChikungunya (CHIKV) is a viral disease belonging to the family Togaviridae transmitted mainly in urban areas by the mosquito Aedes aegypti. Research indicates that recent outbreaks of CHIKV may be related to seasonality, such as João Pessoa, PB, representing an emergency in public health and studies to understand its occurrence in this region. Thus, this research is presented with the objective of studying the dispersion of the Chikungunya cases and their relation with the urban climate in the city of João Pessoa / PB. For this, data from the Chikungunya cases were collected from the Municipal Secretary of Health to quantify the cases of the disease in neighborhoods of the study area. Data on the climate (temperature, relative air humidity and rainfall) of the study area were also collected, based on data from the INMET National Institute of Meteorology (INMET), with a subsequent relationship with the CHIKV cases, using graphs. The periodicity of data collection consisted of 2015 to 2017, taking into account periods of drought and rainy season. The results reveal that the cases of Chikungunya were registered especially in the neighborhoods: Cristo, Cruz das Armas, Mandacaru, Mangabeira, Oitizeiro, Torre and Varjão. Thus, it can be said that climatic conditions together with human activities provide the development of the mosquito with consequent transmission of the disease. Therefore, this understanding is essential for the promotion of public prevention policies that can assist decision-makers in the management of public health in the municipality.Key words: Climate and epidemic, CHIKV in João Pessoa, Chikungunya cases.

scholarly journals Examining Tweet Content and Engagement of Canadian Public Health Agencies and Decision Makers During COVID-19: Mixed Methods Analysis (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E Slavik ◽  
Charlotte Buttle ◽  
Shelby L Sturrock ◽  
J Connor Darlington ◽  
Niko Yiannakoulias
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Public Health Agencies ◽  
Health Agencies ◽  
Medical Health ◽  
Health Accounts

BACKGROUND Effective communication during a health crisis can ease public concerns and promote the adoption of important risk-mitigating behaviors. Public health agencies and leaders have served as the primary communicators of information related to COVID-19, and a key part of their public outreach has taken place on social media platforms. OBJECTIVE This study examined the content and engagement of COVID-19 tweets authored by Canadian public health agencies and decision makers. We propose ways for public health accounts to adjust their tweeting practices during public health crises to improve risk communication and maximize engagement. METHODS We retrieved data from tweets by Canadian public health agencies and decision makers from January 1, 2020, to June 30, 2020. The Twitter accounts were categorized as belonging to either a public health agency, regional or local health department, provincial health authority, medical health officer, or minister of health. We analyzed trends in COVID-19 tweet engagement and conducted a content analysis on a stratified random sample of 485 tweets to examine the message functions and risk communication strategies used by each account type. RESULTS We analyzed 32,737 tweets authored by 118 Canadian public health Twitter accounts, of which 6982 tweets were related to COVID-19. Medical health officers authored the largest percentage of COVID-19–related tweets (n=1337, 35%) relative to their total number of tweets and averaged the highest number of retweets per COVID-19 tweet (112 retweets per tweet). Public health agencies had the highest frequency of daily tweets about COVID-19 throughout the study period. Compared to tweets containing media and user mentions, hashtags and URLs were used in tweets more frequently by all account types, appearing in 69% (n=4798 tweets) and 68% (n=4781 tweets) of COVID-19–related tweets, respectively. Tweets containing hashtags also received the highest average retweets (47 retweets per tweet). Our content analysis revealed that of the three tweet message functions analyzed (information, action, community), tweets providing information were the most commonly used across most account types, constituting 39% (n=181) of all tweets; however, tweets promoting actions from users received higher than average retweets (55 retweets per tweet). When examining tweets that received one or more retweet (n=359), the difference between mean retweets across the message functions was statistically significant (<i>P</i>&lt;.001). The risk communication strategies that we examined were not widely used by any account type, appearing in only 262 out of 485 tweets. However, when these strategies were used, these tweets received more retweets compared to tweets that did not use any risk communication strategies (<i>P</i>&lt;.001) (61 retweets versus 13 retweets on average). CONCLUSIONS Public health agencies and decision makers should examine what messaging best meets the needs of their Twitter audiences to maximize sharing of their communications. Public health accounts that do not currently employ risk communication strategies in their tweets may be missing an important opportunity to engage with users about the mitigation of health risks related to COVID-19.

scholarly journals STRATEGIES OF THE UNIVERSITIES IN MANAGING THE INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL WITHIN THE SMART CITY CONCEPT: NARRATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-49
Author(s):  
D. Zagulova ◽  
Y. Popova
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Intellectual Capital ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Special Value ◽  
Narrative Literature ◽  
Narrative Literature Review ◽  
The University ◽  
The City

Smart City is the basic concept of urban development; it is based on technological solutions and intellectual capital. The universities are the principal structures developing the intellectual capital in the modern society. They often have the necessary technologies, but there is a significant gap between the existing solutions at the universities and their implementation in smart city. The origin of this problem is in the improper procedure of transferring these solutions from university to the city, business, state. The goal of this research is to present the existing possibilities of the universities in creating, developing, transferring and implementing the intellectual capital for the development of smart city. There presented the models of intellectual capital, intellectual capital is considered as an intellectual asset and its management is considered in accordance with the different types of the university. This procedure becomes possible due to the proper narrative literature review. Therefore, the described methodology of the literature review, integrating the various options of writing the systematic and the narrative reviews, is of special value.

On the issue of optimization of atmospheric air quality monitoring for the implementation of the Federal project «Clean Air»

2019 ◽  
pp. 931-936
Author(s):  
I. V. May ◽  
A. A. Kokoulina ◽  
S. Yu. Balashov
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Environmental Monitoring ◽  
Monitoring System ◽  
Protection Measures ◽  
Atmospheric Air ◽  
Monitoring Programs ◽  
Clean Air ◽  
Effectiveness And Efficiency ◽  
The City

Introduction. The city of Chita of Zabaikalsky region is one of the cities of Russia, priority on level of pollution of atmosphere. Of the order of 130 impurities emitted by the sources of the city, 12 are monitored at 5 posts of the Roshydromet network. Maximum monthly average concentrations are formed by benz (a) pyrene (up to 56.8 MPC), hydrogen sulfide (12.3 MPC), suspended particles (up to 4PDC), phenol (up to 3.6 MPC). Significant emissions (59.73 thousand tons in 2018) are aggravated by the use of coal as a fuel by heat and power enterprises and the private sector, climatic and geographical features. Within the framework of the Federal project “Clean Air” of the national project “Ecology”, it is envisaged to reduce the gross emission of pollutants into the atmosphere of Chita by 8.75 thousand tons by 2024, which should lead to a significant improvement in the safety and quality of life of citizens. It is necessary to identify the most “risky “components of pollution for health.It is important to understand: whether the environmental monitoring system reflects the real picture of the dangers posed by pollution of the city’s atmosphere; whether there is a need to optimize the monitoring system for the subsequent assessment of the effectiveness and efficiency of measures; what impurities and at what points should be monitored in the interests of the population, administration and economic entities implementing air protection measures.The aim of the study is to develop recommendations for optimizing the program of environmental monitoring of air quality in the city of Chita, taking into account the criteria of danger to public health for the subsequent evaluation of the effectiveness and effectiveness of the Federal project “Clean Air”.Materials and methods. Justification of optimization of monitoring programs was carried out through the calculation of hazard indices, considering: the mass of emissions and toxicological characteristics of each chemical; the population under the influence. A vector map of the city with a layer “population density” was used as a topographic base. The indices were calculated for regular grid cells covering the residential area. For each cell, the repeatability of winds of 8 points from the priority enterprises and the population within the calculated cell were taken into account. As a result, each calculation cell was characterized by a total coefficient, taking into account the danger of potential impacts of emissions. Based on the results of the assessments, recommendations were formulated to optimize the placement of posts in the city and the formation of monitoring programs.Results. Indices of carcinogenic danger to the health of the population of Chita ranged from 584,805. 96 to 0.03 (priorities: carbon (soot), benzene, benz (a) pyrene); indices of non-carcinogenic danger — from 1,443,558. 24 to 0.00 (priorities: sulfur dioxide, inorganic dust containing 70–20% SiO2, fuel oil ash). The greatest danger to public health stationary sources of emissions form in the North-Western, Western and South-Eastern parts of the city. Roshydromet posts in these zones are absent.Conclusions. As part of the objectives of the project “Clean Air”, it is recommended to Supplement the existing state network of observations of atmospheric air quality in Chita with two posts; to include manganese, xylene, vanadium pentoxide in the monitoring programs, to carry out the determination of Benz(a)pyrene et all posts, which will allow to fully and adequately assess the danger of emissions of economic entities, as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of the provided air protection measures.

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