Measuring Social Vulnerability in an Urban Space Through Multivariate Methods and Models

Preparing for the next outbreak: A review of indices measuring outbreak preparedness, vulnerability, and resilience

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for relevant metrics describing the resources and community attributes that affect the impact of communicable disease outbreaks. Such tools can help inform policy, assess change, and identify gaps to potentially reduce the negative outcomes of future outbreaks. The present review was designed to identify available indices to assess communicable disease outbreak preparedness, vulnerability, or resilience, including articles describing an index or scale developed to address disasters or emergencies which could be applied to addressing a future outbreak. This review assesses the landscape of indices available, with a particular focus on tools assessing local-level attributes. This systematic review yielded 59 unique indices applicable to assessing communicable disease outbreaks through the lens of preparedness, vulnerability, or resilience. However, despite the large number of tools identified, only 3 of these indices assessed factors at the local level and were generalizable to different types of outbreaks. Given the influence of local resources and community attributes on a wide range of communicable disease outcomes, there is a need for local-level tools that can be applied broadly to various types of outbreaks. Such tools should assess both current and long-term changes in outbreak preparedness with the intent to identify gaps, inform local-level decision makers, public policy, and future response to current and novel outbreaks.

Investigating the impacts of socio-economic vulnerability indicators on COVID-19: A case study of Yazd, Iran

Socio-economic vulnerability plays a major role in affected countries by disasters and emergencies. This study aims to identify the most effective socio-economic vulnerability indicators on COVID-19 cases and severity in the Yazd city. This study was conducted in 2022. Regarding purpose of study, different methods were applied during this research. They were including reviewing scientific research, expert panel sessions, weighting the socio-economic vulnerability indicators by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and examining the spatially relationships between vulnerability indicators and COVID-19. Excel and GIS software were applied for data analysis using local correlation coefficient. AHP analysis showed that employment, population density, buildings quality and distance from hospitals were obtained the most weight in the related indicators of socio-economic vulnerability. GIS mapping overlying showed that four socio-economic vulnerability sub indicators including percentage of immigrants, age, population density and distance from health centers had spatially relationships with COVID-19 cases and severity. Western, northern and some central regions of Yazd were identified as the COVID-19 hot spots. Local officials and health authorities should pay immediate attention to the most influential socio-econimic vulnerability indicators that are dominant in the Yazd city. They incorporate measures to the regions identified as hot spots because people who located in these areas are more vulnerable to COVID-19 and the other future natual or man-made disasters.

Urban Housing Inequity: Housing Deprivation and Social Response in the City of Naples

The growth of social inequality in recent decades has a strong urban dimension. In fact, cities are places where such inequalities grow quickly, and have a strong influence on the living conditions and perspectives of different social groups. In this sense, urban segregation becomes an important warning in assessing the existence of disparities that affect the most disadvantaged social groups. Therefore, the aim of this research was to outline the evidence of the phenomenon of residential segregation and housing insecurity on a European scale, and to analyze the case study of Naples, Italy, evaluating the presence of the phenomena of urban segregation and housing insecurity within through the creation of a synthetic index: the “Index of housing deprivation in the neighborhoods of the city of Naples”. After analyzing the extent of the phenomena, we took a step further, seeking to understand whether there have been responses from civil society through protest movements. Indeed, another objective of this paper was to understand why, in the city of Naples, there is no strong social response. In order to give an explanation, we will carry out a comparison with the action of the social movements of Barcelona.