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• The opioid overdose mortality rate demonstrates significant spatial autocorrelation in Milwaukee County. • The spatial lag model accounts for greater variation among social determinants of health and the opioid overdose mortality rate than the traditional ordinary least squares model. • There is a significant global spillover effect of the opioid overdose mortality rate at the census tract level, indicating that without a public health practice that is racially equitable, the opioid epidemic will never be resolved as the use and misuse of opioids continues to spillover from neglected communities into the rest of the county. • Lower socioeconomic status, indicative of structural racism, and a prevalence of labor-intensive occupations were identified as the most significant social determinants associated with fatal opioid overdose in Milwaukee County. Mortality from opioid overdose has become the leading cause of non-natural death in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin in recent years. In order to better understand the opioid epidemic and formulate pro-active responses to the crisis at the local level, this study examines the spatial prevalence and associated factors of opioid overdoses that end in mortality in Milwaukee, WI using the spatial econometrics model. The social determinants of health framework is used to identify the potential related socioeconomic factors associated with opioid use and misuse. Using principal component analysis, 6 primary components are identified from the chosen social determinants and used as explanatory variables in the spatial econometric analysis. The age-adjusted standardized mortality rate is calculated for each census tract as the dependent variable in the analysis. Overall low socioeconomic status, labor-intensive occupations, income inequality, and the 20–34-year-old age group are identified as variables with a significant contribution to high overdose mortality rates, both directly and indirectly. A significant global spillover effect is also identified at the census tract level, indicating the severity of the opioid epidemic in Milwaukee County. This study reveals the overall contribution that socioeconomic factors have on the opioid epidemic and their associated feedback effects, providing targeted information on the opioid epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We examine the discontinuities in the evolution of cities in Texas, USA from 1850 to 2010. [•] The growth of Texas cities exhibits four stages based on qualitative and quantitative analyses. [•] Discontinuities occur mainly at the upper and lower tails of the city size distributions. [•] Medium size cities are more continuous. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The Brazilian Cerrado, a biodiverse savanna ecoregion covering ∼1.8 millionkm2 south and east of the Amazon rainforest, is in rapid decline because of the expansion of modern agriculture. Previous studies of Cerrado land-use and land-cover (LULC) change imply spatial homogeneity, report widely varying rates of land conversion, use ambiguous LULC categories, and generally do not attempt to validate results. This study addresses this gap in the literature by analyzing moderate-resolution, multi-spectral satellite remote sensing data from 1986 to 2002 in two regions with identical underlying drivers. Unsupervised classification by the ISODATA algorithm indicates that Cerrado was converted to agro-pastoral land covers in 31% (3646km2) of the study region in western Bahia and 24% (3011km2) of the eastern Mato Grosso study region, while nearly 40% (4688km2 and 5217km2, respectively) of each study region remained unchanged. Although aggregate land change is similar, large and contiguous fragments persist in western Bahia, while smaller fragments remain in eastern Mato Grosso. These findings are considered in the current context of Cerrado land-use policy, which is dominated by the conservation set-aside and command-control policy models. The spatial characteristics of Cerrado remnants create considerable obstacles to implement the models; an alternative approach, informed by countryside biogeography, may encourage collaboration between state officials and farmer-landowners toward conservation land-use policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]