scholarly journals COVID-19 and Air Pollution: A Spatial Analysis of Particulate Matter Concentration and Pandemic-Associated Mortality in the US

Author(s):  
Brian H. Bossak ◽  
Samantha Andritsch

In 2019, a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was first reported in Wuhan, China. The virus causes the disease commonly known as COVID-19, and, since its emergence, it has infected over 252 million individuals globally and taken the lives of over 5 million in the same time span. Primary research on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 focused on understanding the biomolecular composition of the virus. This research has led to the development of multiple vaccines with great efficacy and antiviral treatments for the disease. The development of biomedical interventions has been crucial to combating this pandemic; additionally, environmental confounding variables that could have exacerbated the pandemic need further assessment. In this research study, we conducted a spatial analysis of particulate matter (PM) concentration and its association with COVID-19 mortality in the United States. Results of this study demonstrate a significant positive correlation between PM concentration levels and COVID-19 mortality; however, this does not necessarily imply a causal relationship. These results are consistent with similar studies in Italy and China, where significant COVID-19 cases and corresponding deaths were exhibited. Furthermore, maps of the data demonstrate clustering of COVID-19 mortality which suggest further investigation into the social determinants of health impacting the pandemic.

Author(s):  
Yen Le Espiritu

Much of the early scholarship in Asian American studies sought to establish that Asian Americans have been crucial to the making of the US nation and thus deserve full inclusion into its polity. This emphasis on inclusion affirms the status of the United States as the ultimate protector and provider of human welfare, and narrates the Asian American subject by modern civil rights discourse. However, the comparative cases of Filipino immigrants and Vietnamese refugees show how Asian American racial formation has been determined not only by the social, economic, and political forces in the United States but also by US colonialism, imperialism, and wars in Asia.


2017 ◽  
pp. 56-62
Author(s):  
Nadejda Kudeyarova

The debate over the Mexican migrants issue has been intensi ed by Donald Trump’s election. His harsh statements have provoked a discussion on the US policy for Mexico, as well as on the migration regulation in the United States. However, the mass migration of the last quarter of XX - beginning of XXI centuries may be also readily associated with the social and demographic processes developed in Mexico throughout the 20th century. The dynamics of migratory activity followed the demographic changes. The internal causes of the Mexican migration analysis will allow more clarity in understanding contemporary migration interaction between the two neighboring countries.


Author(s):  
Michael O. West

It is a truism that black folk in the United States are an international people. From the beginning of the republic, they were compelled by force of domestic (national) circumstances to internationalize their struggle for liberation, the founders having excluded them from the US social contract. The initial affidavit of exclusion is right there in the inaugural document of the social contract, the Declaration of Independence, which, ever so cryptically, damned the king of England for having “excited domestic insurrections amongst us.” This was an attack on the self-emancipatory activities of the enslaved descendants of Africa, who were exploiting the chaos caused by the anticolonial rebellion to claim their freedom, sometimes in cahoots with the British colonialists. Unable or unwilling to confront their own contradictions, the authors of the Declaration of Independence condemned the self-determination of the slaves as the doing of outside agitators, a charge that would be hurled at African American movements and activists for generations to come—up to the present time, in fact....


Beverages ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Canziani ◽  
Erick Byrd ◽  
James Boles

Muscadine wine, fresh muscadine grapes, and other derivatives have enjoyed a heritage niche for decades in the Southeast. Muscadine growers in North Carolina in the United States (US) have asked whether the purchase of muscadine wine is linked to consumption of the fruit itself or even familiarity with other muscadine-based products in terms of spillover effects. The authors explored the interdependency between the market for fresh muscadine grapes and muscadine wine purchase. Consumer panel data were obtained from a State of North Carolina agency with oversight of the grape and wine industry; the agency contracted quota sampling of online consumers from six states in the US South. A total of 543 cases were used in the present study. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)® was employed in analysis. Results show that prior muscadine wine knowledge and knowledge of other muscadine products, e.g., jams, juices, smoothies, sauces, and health/beauty products were significant factors associated with buying muscadine wine. Beliefs about muscadine grapes as a healthy ingredient showed a slight influence, while direct experience with fresh muscadines and consumer attitudes towards buying local or US products were insignificant. Therefore, marketing efforts should focus on increasing consumer exposure to and knowledge of muscadine wine and other muscadine related products.


2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-389
Author(s):  
Dari Green

Schools in America may provide opportunities for upward mobility while also perpetuating social inequality. The inequities found in the US public school system probably result in such a highly stratified society. Conditions found in many schools and classrooms are often a microcosm of the same conditions and factors present in the broader American society. Scholars and education reform activists often use the term school-to-prison pipeline to describe what they view as a widespread pattern in the United States of pushing students, especially those who are already at a disadvantage, out of school, and into the criminal justice system. This research explored whether mentorship in the lives of these very students can affect the trajectory that these students take in life by moving toward a pedagogy of liberation that challenges the inequities and contradictions in the institution of education. Building from a model similar to CDF Freedom Schools, but targeting academic enrichment, Farrah and her colleague Hope developed the Sankofa Project at Yin Elementary School (YES). Embracing both the social-emotional and pedagogical aspects of CDF Freedom Schools, the Sankofa Project moved from a mission that sought to instill a love for reading to actually teaching children to read. This aspect was pivotally important to Farrah and Hope as they sought to dismantle the “cradle to prison pipeline,” the concept of funneling masses of people into marginalized lives, imprisonment, and often premature death. Farrah believed that all her predecessors had done “was spot on, but academic enrichment was a key to steering children away from the pipeline.” With the rebirth of a caste-like system in America, black and brown bodies are disproportionately locked behind bars, relegated permanent second-class status if declared a felon and an increasingly common trend toward annihilation at the hands of those of who are designated to serve and protect them.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 2442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald J. Alcendor

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a betacoronavirus that causes the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is highly transmissible and pathogenic for humans and may cause life-threatening disease and mortality, especially in individuals with underlying comorbidities. First identified in an outbreak in Wuhan, China, COVID-19 is affecting more than 185 countries and territories around the world, with more than 15,754,651 confirmed cases and more than 640,029 deaths. Since December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 transmission has become a global threat, which includes confirmed cases in all 50 states within the United States (US). As of 25 July 2020, the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering Center for Systems Science and Engineering reports more than 4,112,651 cases and 145,546 deaths. To date, health disparities are associated with COVID-19 mortality among underserved populations. Here, the author explores potential underlying reasons for reported disproportionate, increased risks of mortality among African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos with COVID-19 compared with non-Hispanic Whites. The author examines the underlying clinical implications that may predispose minority populations and the adverse clinical outcomes that may contribute to increased risk of mortality. Government and community-based strategies to safeguard minority populations at risk for increased morbidity and mortality are essential. Underserved populations living in poverty with limited access to social services across the US are more likely to have underlying medical conditions and are among the most vulnerable. Societal and cultural barriers for ethnic minorities to achieve health equity are systemic issues that may be addressed only through shifts in governmental policies, producing long-overdue, substantive changes to end health care inequities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Pickup ◽  
Dominik Stecula ◽  
Clifton van der Linden

The novel coronavirus reached the United States and Canada almost at the same time. The first reported American case was January 20, 2020, and in Canada it was January 15, 2020 (Canada, 2020; Holshue et al., 2020). Yet, the response to this crisis has been different in the two countries. In the US, President Donald Trump, prominent Republicans, and conservative media initially dismissed the dangers of COVID-19 (Stecula, 2020). The pandemic became politicized from the early days, and even though Trump and Republicans have walked back many of their initial claims, there continue to be media reports of partisan differences in public opinion shaped by that early response. At the same time, the response in Canada has been mostly characterized by across-the-board partisan consensus among political elites (Merkley et al., 2020).


2019 ◽  

The election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States surprised the world and aroused great anxiety. His ‘America First’ rhetoric had already fuelled concerns that his presidency would be radical during the presidential election campaign in 2016. Above all, it seemed to cast doubt on the US’ claim to global leadership, which was regarded as the foundation of the global order that the US had helped to form since the Second World War. From both an internal and external perspective, this book examines the social, institutional and international reasons for the USA’s foreign and security policy under Trump. With contributions by Hakan Akbulut, Florian Böller, Andreas Falke, Gerlinde Groitl, Steffen Hagemann, Lukas D. Herr, Gerhard Mangott, Marcus Müller, Sonja Thielges, Charlotte Unger and Jürgen Wilzewski.


2002 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-212
Author(s):  
Emily Colborn

The Gate of Heaven, which toured the United States for two years marking the 50th anniversary of the Dachau concentration camp liberation and commemorating the heroism of Japanese-American soldiers in World War II, imagines the friendship between a Japanese-American veteran and the Holocaust survivor he saves at the gates of Dachau in 1945. While the playwright-performers set out simply to celebrate their family histories – Lane Nishikawa is a third-generation Japanese American and Victor Talmadge lost many relatives in the Holocaust – the commemorative politics they encountered at each stop on the tour transformed the meaning of their play. A reconstruction of the social framework the play encountered at four venues, including the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Old Globe Theatre in southern California, demonstrates the malleable nature of race relations in America and the instability of Holocaust representation.


Author(s):  
Mayur B. Wanjari ◽  
Deeplata Mendhe ◽  
Pratibha Wankhede ◽  
Sagar Alwadkar

Recent coronavirus discovered causes the coronavirus infection COVID-19 is also an infectious disease known to cause severe respiratory infections. This most recent virus and infection were unidentified until the epidemic in Wuhan in December 2019, China. Coronavirus has spread around the world and been declared a pandemic by the WHO. The disease has infected several nations, including Italy, Spain, and the United States, with brutality as the death rate rises day by day. The illness may transmit to cough or sneezes via small droplets. Therefore, social distancing is the only way to prevent the transmission as There is no vaccine available for prevention from thecoronavirus. One can reduce the chances of being infected by taking some social distancing measures which will reduce COVID-19 transmission. In the pandemic COVID-19, every individual’s responsibility is to follow all the social distancing measures, to follow the lockdown without being casual about the disease, to save our self, our family, community, and nation from novel coronavirus.


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