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Introduction: Fresno, California, is home to more than 30,000 Hmong. The purpose of this research was to explore the utilization of Hmong shamans 40 years after the first Hmong immigrants arrived in the United States. Hmong shamanism is examined to identify and analyze changes to shamans' practices or patients. Methods: Using grounded theory, semistructured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 20 shamans in their homes. Transcribed data were qualitatively analyzed. Results: Shamans continue to train and practice in this community; utilization by older patients persists while young adult patients have become the fastest-growing group of users. Healing rituals have changed in response to the legalities of animal sacrifice in urban areas and the time demands of work schedules. Discussion: Nurses' awareness that the availability of biomedicine does not preclude the continuing or recurring utilization of traditional healers can facilitate understanding of culturally defined health care needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of visual media, cities, and society are represented, experienced, and interpreted through images. The need for interdisciplinary visual approaches, therefore, is indisputable. By focusing on cinema, this paper aims to develop a conceptual, methodological framework through which theory helps a broad range of researchers in social sciences, humanities, and arts interpret the represented phenomenon. Based on Peirce's model of signs, the framework provides the basis for a dynamic interpretation of the city and society. This paper shows that Peircean cinesemiotics takes advantage of theory in three ways: First, as the basis that provides scholars with clues necessary for identifying eligible "image-signs"; second, as the guiding framework that helps them reach a final interpretation; third, as ideas are being criticized from visual perspectives. As an example of its application, using Jane Jacobs' "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," the final part of the paper applies Peircean cinesemiotics to an image-sign from Death Wish (2018) and interprets it as the representation of safety/crime in a neighborhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. To investigate the selection bias of an Internet panel survey organized by a commercial company. Methods. A descriptive study was conducted. The authors compared the characteristics of the Internet panel survey with a national paper-based survey and with national governmental statistics in Japan. Results. The participants in the Internet panel survey were composed of more women, were older, and resided in large cities. Regardless of age and sex, the prevalence of highly educated people in the Internet panel survey was higher than in the paper-based survey and the national statistics. In men, the prevalence of heavy drinkers among the 30- to 49-year-old population and of habitual smokers among the 20- to 49-year-old population in the Internet panel survey was lower than what was found in the national statistics. Conclusions. The estimated characteristics of commercial Internet panel surveys were quite different from the national statistical data. In a commercial Internet panel survey, selection bias should not be underestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores urban land governance in Hargeisa as a critical site of Somaliland's post-conflict statecraft. Two key issues make this study imperative. First, the current research on Somaliland focuses on the central authority(1) with scant attention to the organization and functioning of the urban state and its effect for the urban poor, thus obscuring the importance of the conurbation as a site for statecraft. Second, Somaliland's post-conflict statecraft is marked by inconsistencies, previously unexplored. While the creation of the subnational state is characterized as bottom-up, with its origins in community-led peacebuilding, its governance practices are characterized by exclusionary top-down procedures imported from colonial and postcolonial periods. Based on interviews with key informants, archival research and document analysis, I historicize these layers of the state-building processes. I argue that the top-down approach of post-conflict land governance, a critical site of statecraft, marginalizes the disadvantaged by creating bureaucracies that favour the affluent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the spatial differences in population aging within the Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) in the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea). Korea is among the most rapidly growing countries in the world in terms of its increasing elderly population. The speed of population aging and demographic decline has been a central issue in the field of urban and regional planning because it is linked to spatial inequalities in socio-economic development. Considering the present importance of understanding population aging, this paper aims to empirically visualize spatial disparities using the old-age dependency ratio, which is measured by the ratio of the elderly population to the working-age population (age 15–64 years old) of one hundred people. For the empirical period examined between 2000 and 2018, I mapped the changing temporal and spatial patterns of the old-age dependency ratio within SMA using spatial analytic tools and cartograms. The visualization reveals that the old-age dependency ratio is relatively high in sparsely-populated rural areas, which underscores the need for further discussion on how to sustainably provide local public services and manage the pressing issue of population extinction in those areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the LIDO, or the Low-Inference Discourse Observation tool, that captures discourse moves produced by students and teachers in whole-classroom discussions. Coding methods are described, followed by analyses that explore validity of the LIDO through correlations among LIDO-coded discourse moves and between LIDO scores and scores on the Instructional Support domain of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System-Secondary, utilizing 643 audio-recorded classroom lessons. Observations were conducted in fourth through seventh grade urban classrooms, including English Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies. Rates of teacher and student discourse moves correlated with each other and with CLASS scores in expected ways, providing evidence of internal and convergent validity. Implications for use in research are discussed, including specific advantages of this new approach, such as the capacity to tease apart teacher behavior from student behavior in the context of classroom interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Planning Education & Research is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: This paper describes the methodological considerations of developing an urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS), in the Sleman District of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Methods: 1) The Sleman District was selected because it is mostly an urban area. 2) The minimum sample size was calculated to measure infant mortality as the key variable and resulted in a sample of 4942 households. A two-stage cluster sampling procedure with probability proportionate to size was applied; first, 216 Censuses Blocks (CBs) were selected, and second, 25 households in each CB were selected. 3) A baseline survey was started in 2015, and collected data on demographic and economic characteristics and verbal autopsy (VA); the 2nd cycle collected updated demographic data, VA, type of morbidity (communicable and non-communicable diseases, disability and injury) and health access. 4) The data were collected at a home visit through a Computer-Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) on a tablet device, and the data were transferred to the server through the Internet. 5) The quality control consisted of spot-checks of 5% of interviews to control for adherence to the protocol, re-checks to ensure the validity of the interview, and computer-based data cleaning. 6) A utilization system was designed for policy-makers (government) and researchers. Results: In total, 5147 households participated in the baseline assessment in 2015, and 4996 households participated in the second cycle in 2016 (97.0% response rate). Conclusions: Development of an urban HDSS is possible and is beneficial in providing data complementary to the existing demographic and health information system at local, national and global levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Issues of the aging population and disability of older persons have been rapidly developing in China over the past 20 years. Since 2016, the Chinese government has been exploring remedies to alleviate social and family burdens and ensure the dignity of the disabled old persons by implementing long-term care insurance systems in a few pilot cities across the country. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present the current challenges faced by China's long-term care insurance system and put forth suggestions for the future, based on literature research and the feedback obtained from its implementation in pilot areas. Research Design: This paper conducts a theoretical study based on the principles of public health ethics. Study Sample: Since 2016, China has launched two batches of pilot cities for long-term care insurance. The analysis object of this study is the feedback on the policy implementation of the existing 29 pilot cities that participated. The relevant data involved in the analysis are from the authors' field research and published literature on the analysis of pilot cities. Analysis: The ethical value and importance of long-term care insurance policies in China are evaluated from the perspectives of policy philosophy and social individual interests. Results: The results of this evaluation show that the core ethical values were not met in the development of China's current long-term care insurance system. Moreover, distributive justice norms were neglected, and access to the system between different social groups and within the groups covered by it was unequal. Conclusions: This paper argues that long-term care insurance should not differentiate between urban and rural areas in allocating nursing resources. Additionally, it would be essential to build democratic supervision and manage public opinions by adopting open and transparent information-sharing policies. Standards of disability assessments and treatment payment should be at par to ensure a balance between the rights and obligations of policyholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the motivations and contexts for China's highly educated, financially independent single urban women to willingly participate in parental matchmaking. Based on the analysis of two rounds of in-depth interviews with 25 never-married women in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, we find that their participation in parental matchmaking is best understood as an intergenerational alliance formed to mitigate perceived insecurities. Neo-familism, state-endorsed stigmatization and discriminatory polices explain why parents and daughters both prioritize socio-economic security in mate selection. However, the benefits of this inter-generational collaboration are doubtful and asymmetrical, more beneficial to parents than daughters. We contribute to the literature by specifying how state-promoted discourses, neo-familism and women's lived experiences explain their participation in parental matchmaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the long-term impacts of the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) mortgage risk assessment maps on the spatial dynamics of recent income and racial distributions in California metropolitan areas over the 1990-2010 period. We combine historical HOLC boundaries with modern Census tract data and apply recently developed methods of spatial distribution dynamics to examine if legacy impacts are reflected in recent urban dynamics. Cities with HOLC assessments are found to have higher levels of isolation segregation than the non-HOLC group, but no difference in unevenness segregation between the two groups of cities are found. We find no difference in income or racial and ethnic distributional dynamics between the two groups of cities over the period. At the intra-urban scale, we find that the intersectionality of residing in a C or D graded tract that is also a low-income tract falls predominately upon the minority populations in these eight HOLC cities. Our findings indicate that neighborhoods with poor housing markets and high minority concentrations rarely experience a dramatic change in either their racial and ethnic or socioeconomic compositions—and that negative externalities (e.g. lower home prices and greater segregation levels) emanate from these neighborhoods, with inertia spilling over into nearby zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This paper focuses on how social inequality is associated with overweight and obesity in children. There is a lack of research with a focus on an important distinction in social inequality, namely geography. The aim of this study was to reduce this knowledge gap by looking closely at the links between rurality and overweight. Methods: The findings in this paper are based on in-depth interviews with school nurses and teachers in rural Norway. The focus was on their experiences with and knowledge about overweight and obesity numbers in rural versus urban areas. Results: We used Bourdieu's terminology to address the challenges related to urban–rural differences, and found that cultural factors connected to tradition, identity and courtesy play an important role in the rural overweight and obesity discourse. Conclusions: Actors and 'experts' working with overweight and obesity and national guidelines need to understand rural contexts and customs and address problems of the countryside on rural, not exclusively urban, premises. Different contexts imply different needs when it comes to reducing the inequalities between rural and urban areas regarding overweight and obesity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of marriage pairings on fertility intentions is specific and has attracted increasing scholarly attention in recent years. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this study explored the impact of couples' educational pairings, age pairings, and income pairings on women's desired number of children and their preference for sons. The results showed that marital-educational pairing had a greater effect on women's fertility intentions than age and income pairing. The effect of marital pairing on women's fertility intentions is also influenced by women's age and urban–rural differences. The study helps to understand the changes in women's fertility intentions and the factors influencing them after the fertility policy transition in China and inspires scholars to pay more attention to the interaction process between couples in the study of fertility intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the legal capacity available to low-income immigrants on national, state and sub-state levels. Legal professionals working in charitable immigration service programs serve as the study's rough proxy for legal capacity, and undocumented immigrants its proxy for legal need. The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) compiled data on charitable immigration programs and their legal professionals from the: US Department of Justice's (DOJ's) "Recognized Organizations and Accredited Representatives Roster by State and City," which is maintained by the Executive Office for Immigration Review's (EOIR's) Office of Legal Access Programs (OLAP). Directories of two leading, legal support agencies for charitable immigration legal programs, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) and the Immigrant Advocates Network (IAN). CMS supplemented and updated these sources with information from the websites of charitable immigration programs. It also added legal programs to its dataset that did not appear in any of these lists. It counted as legal professionals, attorneys, federally accredited non-attorneys, paralegals and legal assistants. The paper finds that there are 1,413 undocumented persons in the United States for every charitable legal professional, and far less capacity than the national average in: States such as Alabama (6,656 undocumented per legal professional), Hawaii (4,506), Kansas (3,010), Georgia (2,853), New Jersey (2,687), Florida (2,681), North Carolina (2,671), Virginia (2,634) and Arizona (2,561). Metropolitan areas (MAs) such as Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario (5,307), Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington (4,436), Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale (3,439) and Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land (3,099). San Bernardino County (6,178), Clark County (4,747), Riverside County (4,625), Tarrant County (3,955) and Dallas County (3,939). The study's introduction summarizes its top-line findings. Its first section describes the importance of charitable immigration legal programs to immigrants, families and communities. Its second details the study's findings on charitable legal capacity and immigrant need. Its third compares the legal capacity of 1,803 charitable legal programs and their 7,322 legal professionals, with the US undocumented population by state and for the 15 largest MAs and counties. Its fourth describes CMS's research methodology and data sources. The paper ends with policy recommendations on how to expand legal capacity for low-income immigrants and better assess legal capacity and need moving forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After years of relative neglect, renewed attention has been paid to smaller, "ordinary" cities. The distinctiveness of these cities is often found in their economic development paths, which, can encompass their roles in international trade. Many locations have included exports as part of their economic growth strategies, yet the effectiveness of export strategies varies by location. This is in addition to varying components of exports for these cities, including the destination geographies and reliance on particular markets. In order to contribute to the growing literature on ordinary cities, this paper examines the export performance of smaller metropolitan areas across the southern United States. In recent decades, the South has been a region marked by robust economic performance, both overall and in terms of exporting; the region's smaller cities are an especially notable case in terms of export performance and structure. While goods-related exports from the smaller cities across this region have tended to trend upward, export performance has been spatially uneven, with export markets and key export industries varying widely. The article concludes with an exploration and discussion of possible export trajectories for these urban areas in the post-pandemic and potentially, post-globalization, environments, particularly in terms of development-related outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the challenges of deploying broadband policies at the local level. It is a topic that has received significant attention in urban and rural areas, with uneven access to broadband identified as an important issue by policy makers and researchers alike. While the broadband and regional development literature has highlighted the complexity of regional deployment, with reference to geographical metaphors such as the last mile, it has tended to downplay the underlying policy processes as actors seek to manage the deployment process over time and space. Drawing on the concept of the policy mix, the paper examines how actors seek to manage complexity between policy objectives. It does so by drawing on an in-depth case-study of broadband policy in Wales – 2012 to 2017, and shows deployment to be a contested process in the last mile, characterised by interaction between policy objectives in a range of policy areas including planning and highways. It is argued that coordination of these tensions represents a complex socio-spatial process in which local actors (government, households, businesses and broadband providers) engage in a negotiated process to find place-based, bespoke solutions to deployment problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of global urban consultancy and the role of private planners in facilitating “knowledge transfer” between cities have received much critical attention in the recent years. Notwithstanding the burgeoning literature critiquing such neoliberal “fast policy” transfer, little is understood in terms of the nuanced politics of expertise and the careering practices of urban consultants in negotiating the diverse international planning fields through their embodied knowledge. Using Singapore as a case study, this paper investigates how ‘homegrown neoliberal’ urban consultancy firms from the city-state operate overseas and interrogates the unwieldy geographies and histories behind the travel of the Singapore model. To the extent that Singapore has often been held up as an exemplary urban model, this paper is interested in how Singaporean planners negotiate foreign planning cultures and assert their authority as urban experts by positioning themselves in elite policy networks to strategically exploit their liminal status as public/private planners. In doing so, the paper not only sheds light on the politics of urban knowledge and expertise but also disrupts hegemonic understanding of neoliberalism by acknowledging the diverse histories and conjunctural contexts that underpin the globalization of private planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although recommended for all member states of World Health Organization, there is no national human papillomavirus vaccination program in Kazakhstan. Furthermore, there are no studies in Kazakhstan that evaluate the mothers' perception of human papillomavirus vaccines. Objectives: This study aims to assess the knowledge and attitudes toward human papillomavirus vaccination among mothers in Kazakhstan and the factors associated with their attitudes. Design: A cross-sectional study was performed during the period of December 2021—February 2022. The STROBE guideline for cross-sectional studies was applied. Methods: Paper-based structured questionnaires were filled out by 191 mothers, 141 of whom had daughters. The attitude score was assessed as per the Likert-type scale. The Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests, with a significance value of < 0.05 were used to analyze the relationships between the characteristics of mothers and their attitude scores. Results: The following factors were significantly associated with mothers' attitudes toward human papillomavirus vaccination: a place of residence, family income, number of children, and refusal of vaccination for themselves (p < 0.005). Of all participants, only 45% of all mothers, 41% of mothers with a female, and 46% of mothers with male children had positive attitudes toward human papillomavirus vaccination. The child's gender was not a significant determinant. Overall, the level of knowledge about human papillomavirus vaccination was found to be low. The median total score is 0 out of 12 for women who have negative and neutral attitudes toward human papillomavirus vaccines. Among women who have positive attitudes toward HPV vaccines, the median score is around 3 points. Conclusion: Before the implementation of the human papillomavirus vaccination program into the Kazakhstani national vaccination calendar, comprehensive and adequate information and education campaigns are required on the national level for parents and the population in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graffiti and street art research (GSAR) has become more acknowledged within the academic discourse; however, it has much to gain from theorising its methodological aspects. As a multidisciplinary field, GSAR has mostly used qualitative research methods, exploring urban space through methods that range from visual recordings to ethnography, emphasising the researchers' reflexivity. This qualitative approach has, however, paid little attention to the role of embodied practices. In this paper we discuss how embodied methodologies provide multisensory research results where the experienced moments, the participant's and researcher's senses, cognition and mobility in urban spaces are connected. Our discussion draws on the authors' fieldwork experiences of walking and edge working, and on the literature concerning embodiment and embodied methodology related to the context of GSAR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The concept of stigma has been widely used to understand patterns of discrimination and negative ideas surrounding people with mental health problems, yet we know little of the specific nuances of how this might operate beyond the 'Global North'. Aim: This paper aims to explore the notion of stigma in an Indian context by considering the lived experience of patients, carers and community members. Methods: A sample of 204 participants, representing mental health patients, informal carers and community members was recruited from urban and rural areas in Kerala, India. Participants took part in interviews where they were encouraged to talk about their experiences of mental ill health, attitudes towards these problems, barriers encountered and sources of support. Results: Experiences akin to the experience of stigma in Europe and the United States were elicited but there were important local dimensions specific to the Indian context. The difficulties faced by people with diagnoses of mental disorders in finding marriage partners was seen as an important problem, leading to marriage proposals being refused in some cases, and secrecy on the part of those with mental health problems. Rather than the 'self-stigma' identified in the US, participants were more likely to see this as a collective problem in that it could reflect badly on the family group as a whole rather than just the sufferer. Conclusions: In the Indian context, the idioms of stigma emphasised impairments in marriage eligibility and the implications for the family group rather than just the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers gendered accounts of girls' schooling and childhood from urban India. It challenges global 'girl effect' narratives by grappling with the interplay of poverty and caste patriarchy and how it shapes families' struggles and concerns and girls' (re)productive labour, (un)freedoms and classroom experiences. Moving beyond the notion of 'multiple childhoods' it develops a conceptual framework that accounts for the way the state, the market, economic inequalities and local patriarchies inscribe poor girls' schooling and work. Drawing upon ethnographic work with Class VIII students in a state school it also unpacks girls' negotiation of classed and casted patriarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many efforts to prevent child sexual abuse (CSA) aim to teach children strategies for recognizing, resisting, and reporting victimization. There is limited evidence that victimization-focused efforts actually prevent CSA. Moreover, these efforts often overlook the fact that many children and adolescents engage in problem sexual behavior against younger children. Responsible Behavior with Younger Children (RBYC) is a novel universal school-based perpetration-focused intervention that aims to prevent the onset of inappropriate, harmful, or illegal sexual behavior by adolescents against younger children. 1 Responsible behavior with younger children was designed to provide adolescents and their parents with the knowledge and tools to help adolescents interact appropriately with younger children and avoid CSA behaviors. In this paper we describe intervention development, summarize lessons learned from implementing RBYC in four urban schools, and report results from our pilot randomized waitlist-controlled trial (RCT) with 160 6th and 7th grade students. Results indicate RBYC was associated with increased accuracy in youth knowledge about CSA and CSA-related laws, and with increased behavioral intention to avoid or prevent CSA with younger children and peer sexual harassment. Although the sample was small and the effects were relatively modest, the findings do suggest that RBYC holds promise for preventing the onset of problem sexual behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Planning Education & Research is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Screening toddlers for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers, Revised (M-CHAT-R) has been shown to lower age of diagnosis by 2 years. In order to streamline ASD screening, research is exploring the use of web-based screening during well-child checkups. The current study examined implementation of the web-based M-CHAT-R in an urban pediatric clinic in Atlanta, Georgia. Toddlers (N = 2557; 87% African American) were screened during well-child visits (Mage = 22.43 months, SD = 3.65). Using the web-based version resulted in a 58.5% increase in the number of cases screened per month. A similar proportion of toddlers in each modality screened positive (P = .43), but significantly fewer children were missing “Follow-up” in the web-based administration (P < .001). These results suggest that it is feasible to implement web-based screening in underserved populations. Future research is necessary to understand factors that facilitate successful implementation of web-based ASD screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the concept of 'nexus' has become a metaphor for resource interactions (particularly between food, water and energy), a policy apparatus to address resource sustainability and an object of academic analysis. Contending that the ways that nexus has been conceptualised and applied so far are invariably incomplete, this paper marks a concerted attempt to draw geographical scholarship into the conceptualisation of nexus-thinking to offer a more complete reading of resource geographies and their underlying interactions. We present critical nexus-thinking as a conceptual framework for tracing the geographies fashioned by resource nexuses, including the enrolment of human and non-human populations into such nexuses, and how the governance of both routine resource interactions and of 'shocks' can impact on such populations. To mobilise critical nexus-thinking as a conceptual framework, we draw out three points of convergence between nexus policy logics and critical geographic/scientific scholarship: socio-material-ecological interactions, politics of scale, and flows, blockages and dis/connectivity. We deploy critical nexus-thinking through analysis that extends the 2014/2015 'water crisis' in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area to other sites, spaces and materials in order to critically evaluate the politics, materiality and spatiality of resource governance, and we use this example to point to how scholars might apply critical nexus-thinking analyses in other contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses methodological adaptations to participatory methods for reflexive environmental management. Reflexive approaches to research methods as process, this article contends, can elucidate social dynamics that standard sampling frames and rote procedures may elide. This argument is supported through a discussion of key insights from scholarship about participatory research methods, as well as auto-reflections on methodical adaptations undertaken while conducting photovoice research on environmental management in peri-urban villages of Southwest China. Reflexive adaptations to participatory methods discussed in this paper include ethnographic attention to forms of refusal, suspended participation, and individual interviews with and without visual aids. These methodological adaptations highlight relations of power between researchers and participants, as well as amongst participants. They also highlight diverse social needs and uneven environmental management processes. Although reflexive approaches to participatory methods are key to producing more widely representational findings and socially just sustainability practices, they are not a panacea for universal inclusivity. Reflexive methodological adaptations have their own limitations and introduce new power relations between participants and researchers. The article concludes with a discussion of how reflexive methodological adaptations bear on research praxis. In particular, the conclusion highlights how reflexive adaptations to research methods are crucial to socially just environmental management and sustainability practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that promoting social justice is one of the central organizing principles of social work, it comes as no surprise that participatory action research has gained much attention among social work researchers. While much has been written about promising practices of participatory action research with various marginalized communities, there remains a dearth of participatory action research literature that focuses on trans* people, a population often under attack in current socio-political climates. In this paper, we report on a participatory action research project, in which a trans* artist worked closely with trans* youth participants (n = 5) to assist them through a creative project. Using a queer theoretical lens and drawing from the concept of "queer world-making," the participants recast cultural representations about what it means to be trans* in their chosen artistic medium. This paper suggests that art can serve as a transformative research practice with trans* youth. Our findings suggest that the rhetorical binary of trans* vulnerability and resilience does not adequately represent lived experience. We make this argument by demonstrating the following processes through which youths engaged art in this participatory action research project: (1) countering normative discourses of what it means to be trans*, (2) promoting self- reflection and expression, and (3) facilitating "queer counterpublics." In so doing, we make an argument for art as a qualitative research process that holds much promise in uncovering and challenging the normative discourse and developing a much more complex and nuanced understanding of what it means to be trans* youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities in the United States have become increasingly less dense either from sprawl from rapid development or vacancy due to decline. The benefits and costs of urban density have been a topic of research since the mid-20th century. The effect of urban density on incomes is one of these areas of research. Based on concepts rooted in urbanization economies and social output, it is assumed in this paper that an increase in urban density increases incomes. Urban density is defined as population and housing density. It was found using a cross-sectional lagged mediated multiple regression that population and housing density have statistically significant indirect effects on income in a sample of more than 300 metropolitan areas in the United States. The significant effects of these variables on employment and the effect of employment on income mediated these effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transgender patients are at elevated risk of intimate partner violence (IPV), but national guidelines do not recommend routine screening for this population. This paper explores the feasibility and effectiveness of routine IPV screening of transgender patients in a primary care setting by describing an existing screening program and identifying factors associated with referral and engagement in IPV-related care for transgender patients. An IPV "referral cascade" was created for 1,947 transgender primary care patients at an urban community health center who were screened for IPV between January 1, 2014 to May 31, 2016: (a) Of those screening positive, how many were referred? (b) Of those referred, how many engaged in IPV-specific care within 3 months? Logistic regression identified demographic correlates of referral and engagement. Of the 1,947 transgender patients screened for IPV, 227 screened positive. 110/227 (48.5%) were referred to either internal or external IPV-related services. Of those referred to on-site services, 65/103 (63.1%) had an IPV-related appointment within 3 months of a positive screen. IPV referral was associated with being assigned male at birth (AMAB) versus assigned female at birth (AFAB) (AOR = 2.69, 95% CI 1.52, 4.75) and with nonbinary, rather than binary, gender identity (AOR = 2.07, 95%CI 1.09, 3.73). Engagement in IPV-related services was not associated with any measured demographic characteristics. Similar to published rates for cisgender women, half of transgender patients with positive IPV screens received referrals and two-thirds of those referred engaged in IPV-specific care. These findings support routine IPV screening and referral for transgender patients in primary care settings. Provider training should focus on how to ensure referrals are made for all transgender patients who screen positive for IPV, regardless of gender identity, to ensure the benefits of screening accrue equally for all patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are starting to understand the magnitude of economic damage from the COVID-19 pandemic. Current estimates cover the national or state level, but tell us little about how massive business closures may be affecting urban vitality at the intrametropolitan level. A particular concern is whether urban areas with high poor or minority populations are more deeply affected. This paper combines InfoGroup Historic Business Data and Google Map API to analyze business closures at the neighborhood level in Franklin County, Ohio, encompassing the Columbus Metropolitan Area. As expected, retail and restaurant sectors had the highest number of closures, but closure rates were higher in other sectors. Descriptive and multivariate analyzes reveal that downtown Columbus has been severely affected, but no disadvantaging effect for communities of color or neighborhoods with concentrations of poor residents is found to be statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of encounter has been used widely within work on urban diversity and socio-cultural difference, yet it remains under-theorized. This paper argues that ‘encounter’ is a conceptually charged construct that is worthy of sustained and critical attention. Drawing on a wide range of geographical interests, including animal geographies, urban diversity, postcolonialism, mobile geographies, and the more-than-human, it offers the first examination of how ‘encounter’ has been deployed across the discipline. By further tracing the historical links between geography and encounter, the paper contends that encounters are distinct genres of contact, and demonstrates why this matters for geographical thought, and how we think about bodies, borders, and difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the development of a Place-Based Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Index (PFIVI), which incorporates six indicators and 30 variables. It also presents an application of this Index within the context of Philadelphia, a postindustrial U.S. city. The paper argues that in order to thoroughly measure a multidimensional socioeconomic problem that is tied to the built environment (e.g., food insecurity and vulnerability), the use of participatory and mixed-methods approaches in GIS (e.g., participatory GIS or PGIS) may produce more comprehensive results compared to other commonly used methods. This paper makes an intervention in the food environment literature, which tends to analyze food access in a narrow way, by applying a methodology conceptually grounded in community food security and operationalized through a PGIS project. It also contributes to still-evolving PGIS methodologies by directly engaging stakeholders in a complicated GIS-based analytical process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most Mexican-Americans do not meet current physical activity recommendations. This paper uses the ORBIT model of obesity intervention development as a framework to outline the process of establishing three employer-based walking challenges in El Paso, Texas, a predominantly Mexican American community. The walking challenges were planned and implemented through the Border Coalition for Fitness and participating partnering organizations. Over 2000 participants and several employers took part in the walking challenges. Results from this ORBIT Phase 1 design intervention suggest that walking challenges are a feasible approach to increase physical activity in Mexican-Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gated developments are a defining feature of the post-apartheid residential landscape. The fortification practices witnessed in gated developments are part of a wider securitisation of the South African urban- and ruralscapes. This research resides in the ambit of the theory of crime and violence as a precursor to the growth in gated developments. Research on gated developments has tended to focus on their proliferation in larger urban settlements, with scant attention being paid to gated developments in smaller settlements and in rural areas. However, non-metropolitan gated developments are a reality, and they display similar security features as those found in metropolitan areas. This paper compares the security levels of gated developments in a suburb of Cape Town with those in small towns in the Western Cape province. Security features are quantified to determine whether differences in securitisation levels exist between the locales. The gated developments in the city display higher levels of security than those in small towns. However, a closer analysis of small-town gated developments reveals high security levels in towns where tourism is the mainstay of the local economy. As the technology of security migrates from military applications to residential applications, a securified small-town future is a real possibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an analysis of the latent need for further Combined Authorities across England and finds that there are many potential functional areas, like the Cambridge and Peterborough Authority, which merit them on grounds of size or growth. They often correspond to Local Enterprise Partnership or past Multi-Area Agreement areas and stand among many abortive devolution proposals of the last four years. Their travel-to-work areas frequently conflict with shire counties' present boundaries, a problem which provides the strongest obstacle to new 'larger-than-local' governance arrangements. The present government's abandonment of the requirement for new non-city Combined Authorities to have a directly elected mayor would remove a main barrier to establishing new devolution agreements across England, which is delayed by the need for a promised policy paper from government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to illustrate recruitment efforts, strategies, and challenges in the process of training bilingual school psychologists to serve diverse schools. First, we address the acute and chronic shortage of bilingual school psychologists in the United States, particularly in urban schools where student populations are increasingly diverse. Then we provide a review of strategies and efforts to recruit and retain bilingual graduate-level learners in one school psychology program in an urban university. Quantitative data regarding recruitment and retention efforts are discussed. We identify challenges and future directions to increase diversity in the field of school psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding residential mobility, housing affordability, and the geography of neighborhood advantage and disadvantage relies on robust information about housing search processes and housing markets. Existing data about housing markets, especially rental markets, suffer from accuracy issues and a lack of temporal and geographic flexibility. Data collected from online rental platforms that are commonly used can help address these issues and hold considerable promise for better understanding the full distribution of available rental homes. However, realizing this promise requires a careful assessment of potential sources of bias as online rental listing platforms may perpetuate inequalities similar to those found in physical spaces. This paper approaches the production of rental advertisements as a social process driven by both contextual and property level factors. We compare data from two online platforms for the 100 most populated metropolitan areas in the United States to explore inequality in digital rental listing spaces and understand what characteristics are associated with over and underrepresentation of advertisements in certain areas. We find similar associations for socioeconomic measures between platforms and across urban and suburban parts of these metropolitan areas. In contrast, the importance of racial and ethnic composition, as well as broader patterns of segregation, for online representation differs substantially across space and platform. This analysis informs our understanding of how online platforms affect housing search dynamics through their biases and segmentation, and highlights the potential and limits in using the data available on these platforms to produce small area rental estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing scholarly interest in the identities and experiences of girls, little attention has been paid to the identities and experiences of rural girls, and in particular how girls' subjectivities are discursively constituted in rural spaces. Using interviews and focus group discussions with girls and young women who attended a girls' empowerment program, this paper draws on feminist poststructuralism and positioning theory to examine how rural gendered subjectivities are constructed and negotiated by girls and young women within the social, spatial, and discursive boundaries of a rural Canadian community. I examine how the girls and young women positioned themselves and were positioned by others as "small town girl" and "country girl" subjects, and how rural positionality was accomplished through invoking real and imagined notions of more urban "others." It is through these contrasts to urban subjecthood that the variability of rural positionality is made visible. The findings of this study complicate and extend the dominant narrative of the urban-rural binary, and gendered identities and performances within rural spaces, by demonstrating the plurality of feminine rural subjectivity. This study offers new applications for the role of girls' empowerment programs in shaping girls' identities, experiences, and perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study makes three contributions to the debate over the effect of local land use regulations on housing prices and affordability. First, it is more geographically extensive than previous studies, encompassing 336 of the nation's 384 metropolitan areas. Second, it looks at multiple measures of regulatory stringency, not just one. Most prior studies have focused either on a single regulatory measure or index across multiple metropolitan areas, or multiple regulatory measures in a single region. Third, this paper considers the connection between regulatory stringency and housing values as a function of employment growth and per-worker payroll levels. We find that restrictive land use regulations do indeed have a pervasive effect on local home values and rents, and that these effects are magnified in faster-growing and more prosperous economies. We also find more restrictive land use regulations are not associated with faster rates of recent home value or rent growth, and that their effects on housing construction levels—that is, the degree to which they constrain supply—is uneven among different housing markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been academic and policy concern about the financial capacity of administratively fragmented metropolitan areas to implement inclusive development measures and provide public services. Metropolitan public financing is problematic because there is a geographical mismatch between extended functional urban regions and administrative units. While local governments are responsible for implementing policies, spending, and raising revenues, financial capacity tends to differ across jurisdictions in response to economic, social and political factors, resulting in manifold disparities. Such variations can be particularly acute depending on the complexity and size of the metropolitan area, and can lead to major spatial disparities in the life standards of residents. This paper focuses on the local financial condition in Mexico City Metropolitan Area, which is often used to exemplify a fragmented metropolitan area. Official statistics from 1989 to 2018 are used to identify major intra-metropolitan variations in the financial condition of local governments. A novel methodology is used to classify municipalities according to their financial health, and discriminant analysis is used to explore the factors shaping the geography of financial performance. The economic and demographic size of municipalities appear to play a significant role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes a mundane piece of urban infrastructure, the pavement, as a starting point, approaching it through the experiences of 7-12-year-old children who journey between home and school in Helsinki, Finland. In doing so, the paper argues that the children and their travel companions are employing pavements to cultivate the caring potential of their city, whether this entails patting dogs, picking up empty bottles, or checking the safety of zebra crossings. Inspired by recent work on the geographies of care and affect attunement, the paper develops the notion of urban care to explore the implications of these child-pavement entanglements for the wider good of cities. Children are commonly understood as passive recipients of adult care in mundane spaces, but the paper demonstrates that children are actually skilled urban carers who maintain a range of attachments not only to their friends, siblings, and parents but also to various human and nonhuman strangers participating in the collective life of cities. The notion of urban care invites recognition of this relational work, engaging as it does with questions concerning the ways in which citizens might best attend to their fragile environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crowd phenomenon frequently occurs in dense urban living environments. Crowd counting or estimation helps to develop management strategies such as designing safe public places and evacuation plan for emergencies. These strategies are different depending upon the type of event such as political and public demonstrations, sports, and religious events. However, estimating the number of people in crowds at closed or open environments is quite challenging because of the dynamics involved in the process. In addition, crowd estimation itself poses challenges due to randomness in crowd behavior, motion, and an area’s geometric specifications. Crowd behavior as well as the area parameters is studied before suggesting any possible technological solution for managing a crowd. This article presents a theoretical understanding of the major crowd size estimation approaches that cannot be achieved through the study of existing survey papers in this area, because the existing survey papers focus on particular technologies/specific areas with no or brief description of the involved steps. Besides, this article also highlights the strength and weakness of crowd size estimation solutions and their possible applications. It is, therefore, believed that the provided information would assist in developing an intelligent system for crowd management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This paper examines the role of organizational structure within government(s) in attempts to implement intersectoral action for health in Danish municipalities. We discuss the implications of structural reorganization and the governance structures that are established in order to ensure coordination and integration between policy sectors. Methods: The paper is based on 49 interviews with civil servants from health and non-health sectors of 10 municipalities. Based on participants’ experiences, cases have been described and analyzed in an iterative process consulting the literature on Health in All Policies and joined-up government. Results: Continuous and frequent processes of reorganizing were widespread in the municipalities. However, they appeared to have little effect on policy change. The two most common governance structures established to transcend organizational boundaries were the central unit and the intersectoral committee. According to the experiences of participants, paradoxically both of these organizational solutions tend to reproduce the organizational problems they are intended to overcome. Even if structural reorganization may succeed in dissolving some sector boundaries, it will inevitably create new ones. Conclusions: It is time to dismiss the idea that intersectoral action for health can be achieved by means of a structural fix. Rather than rearranging organizational boundaries it may be more useful to seek to manage the silos which exist in any organization, e.g. by promoting awareness of their implications for public health action and by enhancing the boundary spanning skills of public health officers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the challenge of conceptualizing and analyzing contemporary city-regions, arguing that the definitions of the city-region are influenced by the methods used to explore it and that in most cases, regions are not either/or but rather are complex juxtapositions of (sometimes) conflicting concepts. In exploring this argument, the paper presents the contemporary tension between the concepts of “hierarchical” and “network,” with the latter often being viewed as the organizing logic of contemporary city-regionalism. Using the case of the Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area, the paper focuses on the development of new neighborhoods in the city-region, constructed from the 1990s onwards, and the effect of this development on the region as a whole. Although a socio-spatial analysis of this development reveals that the design of new neighborhoods follows a similar prototype that might reinforce the idea of an urban network, the geographical spread of new neighborhoods throughout the region reveals a hierarchical structure that preserves existing economic and political distinctions between the core and periphery. The questions addressed in this paper extend beyond the case of Tel Aviv and can be considered in the context of the “regional question” and the ongoing search for its contemporary representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that the economic crisis commencing in 2007 had different impacts across US Metropolitan Statistical Areas, and seek to understand why differences occurred. The hypothesis of interest is that differences in industrial structure are a cause of variations in response to the crisis. Our approach uses a state-of-the art dynamic spatial panel model to obtain counterfactual predictions of Metropolitan Statistical Area employment levels from 2008 to 2014. The counterfactual employment series are compared with actual employment paths in order to obtain Metropolitan Statistical Area-specific measures of crisis impact, which then are analysed with a view to testing the hypothesis that resilience to the crisis was dependent on Metropolitan Statistical Area industrial structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, Chinese families have been the primary provider of care for older adults, and older people expected family care. However, along with the modernization and demographic transition, family functions have been weakened, and state-based care has begun to play an essential role in supporting family care for older people. This paper aims to assess the care preferences of older people and the different responsibilities of individuals and communities in modern China. Using data from the 2014 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS) and multinomial logistic regression modeling, we find that family care remains the cornerstone for older adults and their care preferences are associated with individual and community factors, mainly including the number of children, education level, residential area, the presence of health infrastructure and care facilities, and the values associated with filial piety of older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will suggest how a psychogeographical methodology can be developed as a new method for feminist psychologists, in the study of urban and rural environments. One of the limitations of situationist psychogeography is its grounding in the male gaze. In addition, men have had privileged access to and time to participate in such activities. Drawing on Feminist geography, Queer theory and Gay/Lesbian writing, core concepts such as embodied subjectivity and heteronormativity can be used to develop the theoretical base of a feminist psychogeographical methodology. In this paper, I will outline how feminist psychogeographical research might be conducted; the ‘situationist’ approach of using bodies as research ‘instruments’ means that innovative data may be gathered through the experience of walking and seeing the world through the situationist lens. Finally, the implications of this work for personal and political social transformation will be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interface of a long-standing movement for sustainability at the urban scale and the imperatives of the carbon-reduction agenda are driving change in urban energy systems. This paper seeks to address the nature of that change and, in particular, to consider how different pathways of change are emerging. To do this it draws on the coevolution and pathways literatures to interrogate a database of current urban energy initiatives within the UK. This analysis reveals the multiple pathways of change though which new modes of energy production and consumption are being developed to deliver carbon reductions through the reconfiguring of urban energy systems. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these changes for urban governance and for carbon reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary cities are witnessing momentous shifts in how institutions and individuals produce and circulate data. Despite recent trends claiming that anyone can create and use data, cities remain marked by persistently uneven access and usage of digital technologies. This is the case as well within the emergent phenomenon of the 'smart city,' where open data are a key strategy for achieving 'smartness,' and increasingly constitute a fundamental dimension of urban life, governance, economic activity, and epistemology. The digital ethnography has extended traditional ethnographic research practices into such digital realms, yet its applicability within open data and smart cities is unclear. The method has tended to overlook the important roles of particular digital artifacts such as the database in structuring and producing knowledge. In this paper, we develop the database ethnography as a rich methodological resource for open data research. This approach centers the database as a key site for the production and materialization of social meaning. The database ethnography draws attention to the ways digital choices and practices—around database design, schema, data models, and so on—leave traces through time. From these traces, we may infer lessons about how phenomena come to be encoded as data and acted upon in urban contexts. Open databases are, in other words, key ways in which knowledges about the smart city are framed, delimited, and represented. More specifically, we argue that open databases limit data types, categorize and classify data to align with technical specifications, reflect the database designer's episteme, and (re)produce conceptions of the world. We substantiate these claims through a database ethnography of the open data portal for the city of Calgary, in Western Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in the social geography of dementia, with the development of dementia-friendly communities, localities and cities in the developed world. This paper considers the claims being made for cities to be risky spaces for people with dementia. It debates this through an analysis based on Bacchi's 'representation of problems' framework, evidencing this with policy documents and research findings. This reveals that the city is often seen as problematic for people with dementia, despite evidence to the contrary, and that local politicians are making claims for cities to be responsive dementia communities. The nature of local political ambitions is illustrated by strategies from London and from Manchester in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]