Multilevel built environment features and individual odds of overweight and obesity in Utah

Based on the data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) in 2007, 2009 and 2011 in Utah, this research uses multilevel modeling (MLM) to examine the associations between neighborhood built environments and individual odds of overweight and obesity after controlling for individual risk factors. The BRFSS data include information on 21,961 individuals geocoded to zip code areas. Individual variables include BMI (body mass index) and socio-demographic attributes such as age, gender, race, marital status, education attainment, employment status, and whether an individual smokes. Neighborhood built environment factors measured at both zip code and county levels include street connectivity, walk score, distance to parks, and food environment. Two additional neighborhood variables, namely the poverty rate and urbanicity, are also included as control variables. MLM results show that at the zip code level, poverty rate and distance to parks are significant and negative covariates of the odds of overweight and obesity; and at the county level, food environment is the sole significant factor with stronger fast food presence linked to higher odds of overweight and obesity. These findings suggest that obesity risk factors lie in multiple neighborhood levels and built environment features need to be defined at a neighborhood size relevant to residents' activity space.     

Population-adjusted street connectivity,urbanicity and risk of obesity in the U.S.

Street connectivity, defined as the number of (3-way or more) intersections per area unit, is an important index of built environments as a proxy for walkability in a neighborhood. This paper examines its geographic variations across the rural-urban continuum (urbanicity), major racial-ethnic groups and various poverty levels. The population-adjusted street connectivity index is proposed as a better measure than the regular index for a large area such as county due to likely concentration of population in limited space within the large area. Based on the data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), this paper uses multilevel modeling to analyze its association with physical activity and obesity while controlling for various individual- and county-level variables. Analysis of data subsets indicates that the influences of individual and county-level variables on obesity risk vary across areas of different urbanization levels. The positive influence of street connectivity on obesity control is limited to the more but not the mostly urbanized areas. This demonstrates the value of obesogenic environment research in different geographic settings, helps us reconcile and synthesize some seemingly contradictory results reported in different studies, and also promotes that effective policies need to be highly sensitive to the diversity of demographic groups and geographically adaptable.     

'Gluttony or sloth': critical geographies of bodies and morality in (anti)obesity policy

In many countries, obesity is high on public health policy agendas, and geographical research has begun to engage with obesity. However, obesity is a highly contested term, and recent debates about geographers' engagement with policy, and critical discussions of the presence of bodies in medical geography, bear great relevance for developing a critical perspective on dominant 'obesity discourse'. Through a critical reading of a recent UK policy document, this paper considers the presence of bodies in (anti)obesity campaigns, calling for a more critical approach to the medicalization of body size to be central to future geographical work on obesity.     

The relationship between obesity and socioeconomic status among Texas school children and its spatial variation

Understanding the relationships between obesity and socioeconomic status (SES) among school children and the spatial variation of such relationship is essential for developing appropriate intervention strategies. In this study, we employed Local Entropy Map (LEM) to explore the spatial patterns of the relationship at school district level in Texas. Children's obesity was measured by Body Mass Index (BMI). The BMI data for this study were obtained from Physical Fitness Assessment Initiative (PFAI) program that has been coordinated by Texas Education Agency (TEA). SES was described by six variables, which were further reduced into two factors, namely Household SES and Neighborhood SES. The study period was 2012–2013 academic year. LEM analyses revealed clear spatial variation of the relationship between obesity and SES at school-district level. In particular, the prevalence of obesity among school children was found to be significantly related to Household SES and Neighborhood SES in four regions in Texas. These four regions are centered in major metropolitan areas in Texas, including San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Lubbock. Further regression analyses showed variation of the relationship across these four regions. Obesity among school children in Texas was found to be more related to Household SES than Neighborhood SES; the relationship was strongest in San Antonio region. These findings may suggest the presence of obesogenic environment in the low SES school districts in these regions. Further studies to examine the particular nature of the obesogenic environment in these school districts are needed in order to support the development of regionalized policy and practice that can be more effective in addressing locale specifics.     

Mixed land use and obesity: an empirical comparison of alternative land use measures and geographic scales

Obesity is a growing epidemic in the United States. Walkable neighborhoods, characterized as having the 3Ds of walkability (population Density, land use Diversity, and pedestrian-friendly Design), have been identified as a potentially promising factor to prevent obesity for their residents. Past studies examining the relationship between obesity and walkability vary in geographic scales of neighborhood definitions and methods of measuring the 3Ds. To better understand potential influences of these sometimes arbitrary choices, we test how four types of alternative measures of land use diversity measured at three geographic scales relate to body mass index for 4960 Salt Lake County adults. Generalized estimation equation models demonstrate that optimal diversity measures differed by gender and geographic scale and that integrating walkability measures at different scales improved the overall performance of models.     

个体与环境交互作用下中国成人超重肥胖情况变化趋势及影响因素研究

论文基于中国25个省份内635个社区的29586个成年居民2010—2016年的纵向追踪调查数据,分别利用非线性发展模型和多层Logistic回归模型,阐释中国居民超重肥胖情况的变化趋势,同时探究其在个体与环境交互作用下的影响机制。研究发现：① 以身体质量指数衡量的中国成人超重肥胖发生风险逐年增加,其中女性、年龄、有配偶人群、日均锻炼时长负向作用于成人身体质量指数增长速率;② 中国成人超重肥胖差异具有多层级性,个体层面社会经济属性、饮食习惯和行为方式,社区层面建成环境和自然环境,省域层面城市化水平,均能影响成人超重肥胖发生;③ 不同层级间超重肥胖影响因子具有交互作用关系,环境能通过影响个体心理状态及行为选择对个体健康结果的作用,间接作用于居民超重肥胖结果。研究结果旨在帮助中国成人居民达到更好的健康状态,以及为相关政府部门制定促进人口健康的政策提供理论依据。     

Using simulated data to investigate the spatial patterns of obesity prevalence at the census tract level in metropolitan Detroit

Obesity is a serious public health problem in the United States. It is important to estimate obesity prevalence at the local level to target programmatic and policy interventions. It is challenging, however, to obtain local estimates of obesity prevalence because national health surveys such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) are not designed to produce direct estimates at the local levels (e.g. census tracts) due to small population samples and the need to preserve individual confidentiality. In this study we address the problem of estimating local obesity prevalence rates by implementing a spatial microsimulation modeling technique to proportionally replicate the demographic characteristics of BRFSS respondents to census tract populations in metropolitan Detroit. Obesity prevalence rates are examined for high and low spatial clusters and studied in relation to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) measures of low-income neighborhoods and local food deserts and CDC's measure of healthy and less healthy food environments currently used to target obesity reduction initiatives. This study found that obesity prevalence was largely clustered in the City of Detroit extending north into contiguous suburbs. The spatial patterns of highest obesity prevalence tracts were most similarly aligned with USDA-defined low-income tracts and CDC's less healthy food tracts. The locations of USDA's food desert tracts rarely overlapped with the highest obesity prevalence tracts. This study demonstrated a new methodology by which to assess local areas in need of future obesity interventions.     

Using multilevel modeling and geographically weighted regression to identify spatial variations in the relationship between place-level disadvantages and obesity in Taiwan

Objectives

We examined whether and to what extent the relationship between township disadvantages and obesity varied across geographical areas.

Methods

A cross-sectional analysis of a population-based sample of Taiwanese adults (N = 25,985) from the 2005 Social Development Trend Survey on Health and Safety was performed. Multilevel models integrated with geographically weighted regressions were employed to analyze the spatially varying association between area disadvantages and obesity. The dependent variable was body mass index calculated from respondents’ self-reported weight and height. The key explanatory variable was a township disadvantage index made of poverty level, minority composition, and social disorder. Other individual socio-demographic characteristics were included to account for the compositional effect.

Results

The association between township disadvantages and elevated obesity risk in Taiwan was found to be area-specific. In contrast to results from the commonly used global regression, geographically weighted regression model showed that township disadvantages elevated obesity level only in certain areas.

Conclusions

We found heterogeneity of place-level determinants of obesity across geographical areas. Adoption of population approach to curb obesity would require area-specific strategies for most needed areas.     

哈尔滨市可持续发展的趋势分析

可持续发展评判的指标体系是对可持续发展进行科学评判和决策的一个重要组成部分.从经济、社会、人口、资源、环境5个方面构建了由35个指标构成的哈尔滨市的可持续发展指标体系,并对其1995～2004年的可持续发展趋势进行了分析.分析结果表明,哈尔滨市从1995～2004年经济发展一直呈现稳步上升的趋势,社会、人口、环境和资源子系统呈现比较波动的趋势.2000年后,逐渐进入环境质量提高、资源消耗量下降的时期,环境污染、资源消耗与发展的综合指数越来越低,发展趋势也渐好,说明哈尔滨市的可持续发展的能力在不断提高.     

Multidimensional visualisation of degrees of relevance of geographic data

The ever‐increasing number of spatial data sets accessible through spatial data clearinghouses continues to make geographic information retrieval and spatial data discovery major challenges. Such challenges have been addressed in the discipline of Information Retrieval through ranking of data according to inferred degrees of relevance. Spatial data, however, present an additional challenge as they are characteristically made up of geometry, attribute and, optionally, temporal components. As these components are mutually independent of one another, this paper suggests that they be ranked independently of one another. The representation of the results of the independent ranking of these three components of spatial data suggests that representation of the results of the ranking process requires an alternative approach to currently used textual ranked lists: visualisation of relevance in a three‐dimensional visualisation environment. To illustrate the possible application of such an approach, a prototype browser is presented.     

基于尺度效应的城市化水平指标修正

城市化率在表征城市化水平时受到历时性因素和空间性差异的局限和扭曲;前者表现在城市化率难以衡量城市化发展后期阶段的差异和国内不同时期的城市化政策对城市化率的系统性冲击,后者主要表现在地域分异下的个体效应和规模影响下的尺度效应.针对尺度效应,本文运用反演方法和地图方法,论证了城市化率在表征城市化水平时所受到尺度的两种影响;...     

新丝绸之路形成背景下哈萨克斯坦城市群发展研究（英文）

在伟大丝绸之路复兴的新历史阶段背景下,结合全球和区域市场一体化,文章分析了城市群这一最为重要增长极形成的关键因素和先决条件,在此基础上研究了区域空间组织问题。在欧亚地缘战略中哈萨克斯坦具有横贯中西的区位优势,文章综合评估了哈萨克斯坦城市群发展的可能方向、可能存在的负面影响及其影响范围。研究表明,哈萨克斯坦当前的城市化过程具有多维特征,城市群地区人口占总人口比重明显上升,城市的集聚形式预示着定居形式的成熟,并塑造着特有的社会经济空间,如区域核心、对外经济联系的节点、内部基础设施最重要的连接点等。城市群将扮演区域一体化的特殊平台,以城市群为基础,哈萨克斯坦将在新丝绸之路建设中恢复其重要历史地位,它将成为中亚地区贸易、交通、商业与金融、科技创新和旅游的枢纽,以及链接欧亚的桥梁。     

Contemporary problems of migration of the population of the USSR

"The authors...discuss--on the basis of census statistics and poll results--the three basic trends of Soviet migrational processes (movement to the eastern and northern regions of new development from the country's densely settled regions, mainly central European Russia; constant and sizable rural-to-urban movement; and heavy movement into the country's largest cities and republic and oblast centers), as well as the three main migrational problems (stabilization of the rural population of central European Russia; acclimatization of new settlers in the eastern regions; and activization of the native inhabitants of Central Asia)."     

西藏公路沿线河流丁坝局部冲刷深度计算

分析了丁坝局部冲刷的过程和特征。以量纲理论为基础，通过对国内外公开发表的试验资料采用多元回归的方法。建立了不漫水丁坝清水冲刷的局部最大冲刷深度的计算公式。公式考虑了水深、流速、坝长、丁坝与水流夹角、坝头边坡、泥沙不均匀性等对冲深有影响的因素。其中，对于泥沙的非均匀性，传统方法很少考虑，一般是将均匀沙、非均匀沙的资料一起来分析，在此对其进行了定量的讨论。最终通过西藏地区公路沿线河流丁坝冲刷的实测数据对理论公式检验，发现计算值与实测值吻合较好，其公式可应用于西藏干线公路沿河路基防护工程丁坝局部冲刷深度计算。     

论沙粒两种起动关系与沙粒跃移的双重性

研究沙粒两种起动关系是深入认识沙粒两种起动效能的继续和发展。文章分析了沙粒两种起动的不同性质，首次把流体起动界定为风蚀性起动，把跃移质冲击起动界定为置换性起动。认为流体起动具有主动分异性，而冲击起动只有随机分异性。根据这些特性对沙粒两种起动效能和沙粒连续移动提出了新义。认为沙粒跃移具有双重性，跃移质有其冲击地表的一面，也有其大量耗能的一面。沙粒两种起动具有兴衰与共的不可分割关系。地表风蚀是沙粒两种起动优势互补相互促进的结果；而地表堆积有时是跃移质耗能过多引起两种起动互相制约的结果。通过多方论证，将沙粒两种起动效能之由传统的19：1，初步改为4：1乃至3：1。     

Biomass production of different ecotypes of threegrass species of the semi-arid grasslands of southern Africa

Biomass production of different ecotypes within three ecological importantgrass species was determined during cultivation under uniform environmental conditions. Results obtained clearly indicate that ecotypes of these species exhibit a significant degree of variation with regard to biomass production. Furthermore, indications from this investigation are that no correlation exists between production ability of a species and long-term average rainfall, and the effect of both genetic and environmental factors on the production ability of a species determines the eventual biomass production of a species. Biomass production represents one of various ecologically important characteristics to be used in conjunction with other ecological characters to construct a usable, special purpose classification system. This system will assist rangeland ecologists in identifying functional ecotypes within grass species, thus facilitating the understanding and interpretation of vegetation dynamic models and rangeland condition assessments.