Geographically targeted COVID-19 vaccination is more equitable and averts more deaths than age-based thresholds alone

COVID-19 mortality increases markedly with age and is also substantially higher among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) populations in the United States. These two facts can have conflicting implications because BIPOC populations are younger than white populations. In analyses of California and Minnesota—demographically divergent states—we show that COVID vaccination schedules based solely on age benefit the older white populations at the expense of younger BIPOC populations with higher risk of death from COVID-19. We find that strategies that prioritize high-risk geographic areas for vaccination at all ages better target mortality risk than age-based strategies alone, although they do not always perform as well as direct prioritization of high-risk racial/ethnic groups. Vaccination schemas directly implicate equitability of access, both domestically and globally.

COVID-19 Mortality At The Neighborhood Level: Racial And Ethnic Inequalities Deepened In Minnesota In 2020

Substantial racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 mortality have been observed at the state and national levels. However, less is known about how race and ethnicity and neighborhood-level disadvantage may intersect to contribute to both COVID-19 mortality and excess mortality during the pandemic. To assess this potential interaction of race and ethnicity with neighborhood disadvantage, we link death certificate data from Minnesota from the period 2017-20 to the Area Deprivation Index to examine hyperlocal disparities in mortality. Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) standardized COVID-19 mortality was 459 deaths per 100,000 population in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods compared with 126 per 100,000 in the most advantaged. Total mortality increased in 2020 by 14 percent for non-Hispanic White people and 41 percent for BIPOC. Statistical decompositions show that most of this growth in racial and ethnic disparity is associated with mortality gaps between White people and communities of color within the same levels of area disadvantage, rather than with the fact that White people live in more advantaged areas. Policy interventions to reduce COVID-19 mortality must consider neighborhood context.

Geographically-targeted COVID-19 vaccination is more equitable than age-based thresholds alone

COVID-19 mortality increases dramatically with age and is also substantially higher among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) populations in the United States. These two facts introduce tradeoffs because BIPOC populations are younger than white populations. In analyses of California and Minnesota--demographically divergent states--we show that COVID vaccination schedules based solely on age benefit the older white populations at the expense of younger BIPOC populations with higher risk of death from COVID-19. We find that strategies that prioritize high-risk geographic areas for vaccination at all ages better target mortality risk than age-based strategies alone, although they do not always perform as well as direct prioritization of high-risk racial/ethnic groups.

Building an interdisciplinary framework to advance conceptual and technical aspects of population-environment research focused on women's and children's health

Great gains have been made in providing researchers geo-spatial data that can be combined with population health data. This development is crucial given concerns over the human health outcomes associated with a changing climate. Merging population and environmental data remains both conceptually and technically challenging because of a large range of temporal and spatial scales. Here we propose a framework that addresses and advances both conceptual and technical aspects of population-environment research. This framework can be useful for considering how any time or space-based environmental occurrence influences population health outcomes and can be used to guide different data aggregation strategies. The primary consideration discussed here is how to properly model the space and time effects of environmental context on individual-level health outcomes, specifically maternal, child and reproductive health outcomes. The influx of geospatial health data and highly detailed environmental data, often at daily scales, provide an opportunity for population-environment researchers to move towards a more theoretically and analytically sound approach for studying environment and health linkages.

Do Irregularly Shaped School Attendance Zones Contribute to Racial Segregation or Integration?

This research investigates if and how much the shapes of school attendance zones contribute to racial segregation in schools. We find that the typical school attendance zone is relatively compact and resembles a square-like shape. Compact zones typically draw children from local residential areas, and since local areas are often racially homogeneous, this suggests that high levels of racial segregation in the largest school districts are largely structured by existing residential segregation. Still, this study finds that the United States contains some attendance zones with highly irregular shapes-some of which are as irregular as the most irregular Congressional District. Although relatively rare, attendance zones that are highly irregular in shape almost always contain racially diverse student populations. This racial diversity contributes to racial integration within school districts. These findings contradict recent theoretical and empirical scholarship arguing that irregularly shaped zones contribute to racial segregation in schools. Our findings suggest that most racial segregation in school attendance zones is driven by large-scale segregation across residential areas rather than a widespread practice among school districts to exacerbate racial segregation by delineating irregularly shaped attendance zones.

Perceived and Police-Reported Neighborhood Crime: Linkages to Adolescent Activity Behaviors and Weight Status

PURPOSE

Inadequate physical activity and obesity during adolescence are areas of public health concern. Questions exist about the role of neighborhoods in the etiology of these problems. This research addressed the relationships of perceived and objective reports of neighborhood crime to adolescent physical activity, screen media use, and body mass index (BMI).

METHODS

Socioeconomically and racially/ethnically diverse adolescents (N = 2,455, 53.4% female) from 20 urban, public middle and high schools in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota responded to a classroom survey in the Eating and Activity in Teens 2010 study. BMI was measured by research staff. Participants' mean age was 14.6 (standard deviation = 2.0); 82.7% represented racial/ethnic groups other than non-Hispanic white. Linear regressions examined associations between crime perceived by adolescents and crime reported to police and the outcomes of interest (BMI z-scores, physical activity, and screen time). Models were stratified by gender and adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and school.

RESULTS

BMI was positively associated with perceived crime among girls and boys and with reported crime in girls. For girls, there was an association between higher perceived crime and increased screen time; for boys, between higher reported property crime and reduced physical activity. Perceived crime was associated with reported crime, both property and personal, in both genders.

CONCLUSIONS

Few prior studies of adolescents have studied the association between both perceived and reported crime and BMI. Community-based programs for youth should consider addressing adolescents' safety concerns along with other perceived barriers to physical activity. Interventions targeting actual crime rates are also important.

VASA: Interactive Computational Steering of Large Asynchronous Simulation Pipelines for Societal Infrastructure

We present VASA, a visual analytics platform consisting of a desktop application, a component model, and a suite of distributed simulation components for modeling the impact of societal threats such as weather, food contamination, and traffic on critical infrastructure such as supply chains, road networks, and power grids. Each component encapsulates a high-fidelity simulation model that together form an asynchronous simulation pipeline: a system of systems of individual simulations with a common data and parameter exchange format. At the heart of VASA is the Workbench, a visual analytics application providing three distinct features: (1) low-fidelity approximations of the distributed simulation components using local simulation proxies to enable analysts to interactively configure a simulation run; (2) computational steering mechanisms to manage the execution of individual simulation components; and (3) spatiotemporal and interactive methods to explore the combined results of a simulation run. We showcase the utility of the platform using examples involving supply chains during a hurricane as well as food contamination in a fast food restaurant chain.

Building the School Attendance Boundary Information System (SABINS): Collecting, Processing, and Modeling K to 12 Educational Geography

The School Attendance Boundary Information System is a social science data infrastructure project that assembles, processes, and distributes spatial data delineating K through 12^th grade school attendance boundaries for thousands of school districts in U.S. Although geography is a fundamental organizing feature of K to 12 education, until now school attendance boundary data have not been made readily available on a massive basis and in an easy-to-use format. The School Attendance Boundary Information System removes these barriers by linking spatial data delineating school attendance boundaries with tabular data describing the demographic characteristics of populations living within those boundaries. This paper explains why a comprehensive GIS database of K through 12 school attendance boundaries is valuable, how original spatial information delineating school attendance boundaries is collected from local agencies, and techniques for modeling and storing the data so they provide maximum flexibility to the user community. An important goal of this paper is to share the techniques used to assemble the SABINS database so that local and state agencies apply a standard set of procedures and models as they gather data for their regions.

Ca2+-calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II-dependent activation of contractility in ferret aorta

1. The present study was undertaken to determine whether Ca2+-calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) participates in the regulation of vascular smooth muscle contraction, and if so, to investigate the nature of the downstream effectors. 2. The contractility of isolated ferret aorta was measured while inhibiting CaMKII either with antisense oligodeoxynucleotides against CaMKII or with the CaMKII inhibitor KN93. 3. Treatment with antisense oligodeoxynucleotides against CaMKII resulted in, on average, a decrease in protein levels of CaMKII to 56 % of control levels and significantly decreased the magnitude of the contraction in response to 51 mM potassium physiological saline solution (KCl). Contraction in response to the phorbol ester DPBA was not significantly affected. 4. The CaMKII blocker KN93 also resulted in a significant decrease in the force induced by 51 mM KCl but caused no significant change in the contraction in response to DPBA or the alpha-adrenoceptor agonist phenylephrine. 5. During contraction with 51 mM KCl, both CaMKII and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activity increased, as determined by phospho-specific antibodies. The MAPK phosphorylation level was inhibited by KN93, PD098059 (a MAPK kinase (MEK) inhibitor) and calcium depletion. 6. Myosin light chain (LC20) phosphorylation also increased during contraction with KCl and the increase was significantly blocked by PD098059 as well as by both KN93 and antisense oligodeoxynucleotides to CaMKII. 7. The data indicate that CaMKII plays a significant role in the regulation of smooth muscle contraction and suggest that CaMKII activates a pathway by which MAPK activation leads to phosphorylation of LC20 via activation of myosin light chain kinase.