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The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between environmental changes and infectious diseases and their impact on health in environmental justice (EJ) communities. The evolution of EJ science and research is contingent upon an integrated approach that takes into account social processes and environmental changes to address the burden of infectious diseases in EJ communities. We recognize that infectious disease and environmental justice is novel and calls for more research in this area, especially as the focus of public health shifts towards an ecologic and social approach to disease prevention. We attempt to explore in further detail how environmental changes such as urbanization, agriculture, and climate variability could potentially influence pathogen dynamics, vector transmission, host susceptibility, and disease outcomes among environmental justice populations.

Having first reached epidemic proportions in coastal metropolitan areas, COVID-19 has spread 4 around the country. Reported case rates vary across counties from zero to 125 per thousand 5 population (around a state prison in the rural county of Trousdale, Tennessee). Overall, rural 6 counties are underrepresented relative to their share of the population, but a growing proportion 7 of all daily cases and deaths have been reported in rural counties. This analysis uses daily 8 reports for all counties to present the trends and distribution of COVID-19 cases and deaths in 9 rural counties, from late March to May 16, 2020. I describe the relationship between population 10 density and case rates in rural and non-rural counties. Then I focus on noteworthy outbreaks 11 linked to prisons, meat and poultry plants, and nursing homes, many of which are linked to 12 high concentrations of Hispanic, American Indian, and Black populations. The growing 13 epidemic in rural counties is apparently driven by outbreaks concentrated in these institutional 14 settings, which are conducive to transmission. The impact of the epidemic in rural areas may 15 be heightened due to their weaker health infrastructure and more vulnerable populations, 16 especially due to age, socioeconomic status, and health conditions. As a result, the epidemic 17 may contribute to the ongoing decline of health, economic, and social conditions in rural areas.

Utilization of cost-effective essential preventive health services increased after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) provision that non-grandfathered private insurers provide cost-effective preventive services without cost sharing in 2010. Little is known, however, whether this change is also observed among Asians in the US. We examined patterns of preventive services utilization among Asian subgroups relative to non-Latino whites (whites) after the implementation of the ACA’s preventive services provisions. Using 2013–2016 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data, we examined utilization trends in preventive services among Asian Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, and other Asians relative to whites. We also ran logistic regression models to estimate the likelihood of having received each of the seven essential preventive services (routine checkups, flu vaccinations, cholesterol screenings, blood pressure checkups, Papanicolaou “pap” tests, mammograms, and colorectal cancer screenings). Compared to whites, Asians had higher rates of utilization of routine checkups, cholesterol screenings, and flu vaccinations, but they had lower utilization rates of blood pressure checkups, pap tests, and mammograms. The patterns of preventive services utilization differed across the Asian subgroups. All Asian subgroups, except for Filipinos, were less likely to have pap tests or mammograms than whites. Moreover, we observed a decreasing trend in having pap tests, mammograms, or colorectal cancer screenings among all Asian subgroups between 2013 and 2016. Our findings suggest that there are low cancer screening rates across Asian subgroups. This indicates the need for programs tailored to specific Asian subgroups to improve cancer screening.

An aspect of citation behavior, which has received longstanding attention in research, is how articles’ received citations evolve as time passes since their publication (i.e., citation ageing). Citation ageing has been studied mainly by the formulation and fit of mathematical models of diverse complexity. Commonly, these models restrict the shape of citation ageing functions and explicitly take into account factors known to influence citation ageing. An alternative—and less studied—approach is to estimate citation ageing functions using data-driven strategies. However, research following the latter approach has not been consistent in taking into account those factors known to influence citation ageing. In this article, we propose a model-free approach for estimating citation ageing functions which combines quantile regression with a non-parametric specification able to capture citation inflation. The proposed strategy allows taking into account field of research effects, impact level effects, citation inflation effects and skewness in the distribution of cites effects. To test our methodology, we collected a large dataset consisting of more than five million citations to 59,707 research articles spanning 12 dissimilar fields of research and, with this data in hand, tested the proposed strategy.

We develop a simple dynamic model of policy reform that captures some of the determinants that underlie the differences between the reform paths taken by a number of countries since the early 1990s. The model focuses on the interaction between domestic institutions and international organizations that promote reform, on the one hand, and the political incentives for reversing reforms, on the other. At equilibrium, there are three types of reform paths. A country can undergo a full-scale, lasting reform, can carry out a partial but lasting reform, or can go through cycles of reforms and costly counter-reforms. Domestic institutions, along with the incentives provided by international organizations, determine the equilibrium path. A politically myopic international organization may induce cycles of reforms and costly counter-reforms, thereby reducing the country's well-being. An international organization that only provides funds to promote reforms may have a less beneficial effect than one that assists the country with fresh funds to defend reforms when there is a risk of reversal. International funds that promote reforms can also influence domestic institutions. For example, due to the intervention of an international organization, countries could have incentives to dismantle institutions that build up reversal cost and/or do not fully build their fiscal capacity.

Professor Robert M. Groves is among the world leaders in survey methodology and survey statistics over the last four decades. Groves’ research—particularly on survey nonresponse, survey errors and costs, and responsive design—helped to provide intellectual footing for a new academic discipline. In addition, Groves has had remarkable success building academic programs that integrate the social sciences with statistics and computer science. He was instrumental in the development of degree programs in survey methodology at the University of Michigan and the University of Maryland. Recently, as Provost of Georgetown University, he has championed the use of big data sets to increase understanding of society and human behavior. Between his academic tenures, Groves served as Director of the US Census Bureau. Professor Groves is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association, elected member of the International Statistical Institute, elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies and presidential appointed member of the National Science Board. The interview was conducted in early 2016 at Georgetown University.

The use of active transportation (AT), such as walking, cycling, or even public transit, as a means of transport offers an opportunity to increase youth physical activity and improve health. Despite the well-known benefits of AT, there are environmental and social variables that converge on the AT experiences of low-income youth and youth of color (YOC) that have yet to be fully uncovered. This study uses an intersectional framework, largely focusing on the race-gender-class trinity, to examine youth AT within a context of transportation inequity. Theoretically guided by the Ecological Model of Active Transportation, focus groups were completed with two groups of girls (15 participants) and two groups of boys (nine participants) ranging between the ages of 12–15 years who lived within the Washington D.C. area. This research found race, gender, and class to be inhibitors of AT for both boys and girls, but with more pronounced negative influences on girls.

The quantitative scholarship on domestic labor has documented the existence of a gender gap in its performance in all countries for which data are available. Only recently have researchers begun to analyze economic disparities  among  women in their time spent doing housework, and their studies have been largely limited to the U.S. We extend this line of inquiry using data from two European countries, the former West Germany and Sweden. We estimate the “economic gap” in women’s housework time, which we define as the difference between the time spent by women at the lowest and highest deciles of their own earnings. We expect this gap to be smaller in Sweden given its celebrated success at reducing both gender and income inequality. Though Swedish women do spend less time on domestic labor, however, and though there is indeed less earnings inequality among them, the economic gap in their housework is only a little smaller than among women in the former West Germany. In both places, a significant negative association between women’s individual earnings and their housework time translates into economic gaps of more than 2.5 hours per week. Moreover, in both countries, women at the highest earnings decile experience a gender gap in housework that is smaller by about 4 hours per week compared to their counterparts at the lowest decile.

The authors used the 2003 to 2012 American Time Use Survey to examine marital status variation in mothers' leisure time. They found that never‐married mothers have more total leisure but less high‐quality leisure when compared with married mothers. Never‐married mothers' leisure is concentrated in passive and socially isolated activities that offer fewer social and health benefits. Black single mothers have the highest amount of socially isolated leisure, particularly watching television alone. Results suggest that differences in the context and type of leisure are salient dimensions of the divergent and stratified life conditions of married, divorced, and single mothers.

Assumptions that single mothers are “time poor” compared with married mothers are ubiquitous. We tested theorized associations derived from the time poverty thesis and the gender perspective using the 2003–2012 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS). We found marital status differentiated housework, leisure, and sleep time, but did not influence the amount of time that mothers provided childcare. Net of the number of employment hours, married mothers did more housework and slept less than never-married and divorced mothers, counter to expectations of the time poverty thesis. Never-married and cohabiting mothers reported more total and more sedentary leisure time than married mothers. We assessed the influence of demographic differences among mothers to account for variation in their time use by marital status. Compositional differences explained more than two-thirds of the variance in sedentary leisure time between married and never-married mothers, but only one-third of the variance between married and cohabiting mothers. The larger unexplained gap in leisure quality between cohabiting and married mothers is consistent with the gender perspective.