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The global surge in displacement, with nearly 110 million people uprooted due to violence, underscores the pressing need to comprehend the challenges faced by refugees. Population growth, environmental crises, and political instability contribute to this crisis, projecting an escalating trend in the decades ahead. While hosting countries strive to address concerns related to labour markets, state provisions, and cultural integration, understanding the well-being of refugees upon entry needs to be more adequately explored. This study focuses on refugee stability and integration, employing Austria as a case study. Stability is assessed through residential movement, where more frequent moves indicate instability. Utilising comprehensive administrative data spanning November 2022 to November 2023, we examine residence movements as a proxy for stability. Our findings reveal a stark contrast in the stability of refugees compared to other migrant groups. Analysing movement profiles, we establish that refugees exhibit significantly higher rates of residential mobility than their counterparts, especially among male refugees. This imbalance persists even when comparing refugees to migrants from top refugee-sending countries without official refugee status. This study contributes valuable insights into the intricate dynamics of refugee stability, shedding light on the enduring challenges faced by this population. By examining movement patterns as a key indicator, we provide a nuanced understanding of the residential experiences of refugees, that can inform targeted policies and interventions for enhanced refugee well-being and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with HIV face challenges securing housing and employment. Patient navigation is an effective intervention that can improve the receipt of these services, which have been linked to better health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to assess implementation of patient navigation in diverse delivery settings. We also evaluated the relationship between these services and health outcomes among participants. Twelve sites in the United States (N = 1,082) implemented navigation using single or multiple navigator interventions to improve housing, employment, viral suppression, and retention in care. Sites included health departments, health centers, and AIDS service organizations (ASO). Client-level data were used to model relationships of interest. Across the 12 sites, regardless of model, housing (odds ratio (OR) = 1.18, p <.001), employment (OR = 1.09, p <.001) and retention in care (OR 1.11, p =.007) improved significantly over time; however, viral suppression did not (OR = 1.04, p =.120). Regardless of model of care, patient navigation improved housing, employment, and retention in care. This study demonstrated that while navigation supports people with HIV in securing housing and employment, models using a more intensive format worked best in specific settings. While most studies focus on unimodal strategies, this study builds on the evidence by examining how navigation models can be delivered to reduce barriers to care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops a theoretical model examining the relation between housing market strength and brokerage choice. Our model shows that although internal transactions (where both buyer and seller agents are either the same or work for the same firm) have the potential side benefits of higher commission rates and lower search costs, in a strong housing market, brokerage firms are more likely to engage external transactions because of the greater demand for housing. However, when the market weakens, external demand for housing decreases, and brokerage firms become more willing to conduct internal transactions. Furthermore, while an internal transaction tends to occur at the expense of lowering the selling price, we show that it could also be chosen by brokerage firms with higher in-house searching-matching efficiency. This higher in-house efficiency generates a (second-order) counterforce of increasing the price. Hence, our model demonstrates that the housing market has a (partial) self-correction mechanism for the principal-agent incentive misalignment problem, especially when the market strengthens. Conversely, when the market weakens, internal transactions increase and prices decline, which can further weaken the market. Therefore, the equilibrium brokerage choice creates a self-reinforcing mechanism for generating more extreme market conditions. Using the Doubly Robust (DR) estimation method, we present empirical evidence consistent with the model with multiple listing service data from Hampton Roads, Virginia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst the persistent urban expansion in European cities, the need for high-quality housing for growing populations remains a challenge. Integrating newly developed housing areas into the urban fabric and fostering a distinct local identity pose additional challenges. Despite extensive research in this realm, there exists a gap in the examination of the extent of shared space utilization in new housing developments. This study fills that gap by analyzing the quantity, quality, and diversity of space utilization in new housing projects, focusing on the development processes and maintenance methods. The research, conducted through site and case study analyses of Sonnwendviertel Ost development area in Vienna, underscores that the shared utilization of spaces is closely tied to distinct housing models with varied levels of financing and involvement of diverse actors. Consequently, it provides insights into the housing models and their configurations that best facilitate the development of shared use of spaces in housing construction. This, in turn, is perceived as instrumental in cultivating a more robust neighborhood identity and enhancing the livability of communities, thereby contributing to sustainable urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research delves into the evolution of Istanbul's urban agenda, which has become increasingly intricate due to recent challenges. The city's planning paradigm has undergone a discernible shift, with heightened attention concerns like seismic resilience, sustainability, and the climate-change. The planning projections for the city have experienced significant changes, by the earthquakes 1999 and 2023, climate-change, and the pandemic in 2020. Although the pandemic is considered temporary, it has significant in bringing sustainable matters like living airier, greener areas, back to the city planning. In response to the latest challenges, particularly the earthquake, the city confronted an ecological dilemma, prompting proposal to relocate new housing areas to the Northern-forest. The city's northern development axis, planned a century ago by the French architect-urbanist Henri Prost, is being questioned today end to its limits for green-areas. Based on ongoing global discussion, on academical circles on the imperative, the historic city of Istanbul grapples with the contemporary problems sustainability and seismic considerations in its future planning endeavors. This study engages in discursive analyses while concurrently offering practical recommendations to address sustainability through the development of specific zoning arrangements focuses on dual research axis urban-based, and housing-based, laws, and regulations, also housing model, and typologies as missing part of the previous research. This study principally examines this problematic via zoning practices of Istanbul in the Henri Prost period from housing areas to the housing models and typologies. Also, globally, along with the new zoning, the old zoning laws, and regulations can be bring the agenda again in the context of sustainability to promote a balanced relationship between human, nature and sustainability goals. In conclusion, amid the recent challenges in the city, innovative suggestions for advanced zoning applications in pursuit of sustainability reveal a notable gap in the protection of green-areas, planning new settlements. Henri Prost's master plans stand out for employing distinctive zoning techniques for each district, also offering specific housing models and typologies. Extending this methodology to green-areas presents a bridge the existing void. By presented potential case scenarios at the end of the study emphasizing the merits of integrating historical zoning practices into contemporary planning, it aims to stimulate discussions on holistic and forward-looking urban development strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The USA has some of the highest utilization rates of the Emergency Department (ED) worldwide, leading to increased healthcare costs, constrained resources, and fragmented care. Many of the highest ED utilizers are persons experiencing homelessness (PEH) and those with mental health conditions, with even higher use by those with comorbid social challenges. This study reviewed the literature assessing interventional approaches in the ED to minimize the burden of ED utilization by PEH with associated mental health conditions. We first conducted an informal literature review of high ED utilizers and their most common presenting symptoms. We then conducted a scoping review of articles according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines; we used PubMed and Web of Science databases as well as Google Scholar. We screened the titles and abstracts of studies that evaluated programs that aimed to reduce ED usage by patients with mental illness who were also experiencing homelessness. Of the 1574 titles and abstracts screened, 49 full texts were examined for eligibility. Of those, 35 articles were excluded for a final count of 14 included studies. We found that the studies fell under two main interventional categories: housing support and care management. There were various approaches to reduce ED visits from PEH with mental illness around the world. Overall, these studies found varying degrees of success in reducing ED visits for both housing intervention and care management strategies. Comparison of these studies reveals that the success of related strategies like housing support often have different outcomes which can be attributed to the differences between the populations studied, previously available community resources, and other psychosocial factors affecting study participants. Overall, the most successful studies found that a tailored approach that addresses the unique needs of participants had the greatest impact on reducing ED visits and hospitalizations. Further research is needed to determine the best strategies for specific populations and how to promote health equity among PEH with associated mental health conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racially restrictive covenants in housing deeds, commonplace in Minnesota for houses built from the 1910s to the 1950s, provided a foundation for the myriad of policies that made it difficult for people of color to obtain housing. Though covenants were ruled illegal in 1968, their legacy continues to shape neighborhoods. The Mapping Prejudice Project's efforts in Hennepin County, Minnesota, produced the first systematic documentation of racially restrictive covenants. We use this novel data set to explore the relationship between historic covenants and current health and wellbeing outcomes. Using regression analysis to control for neighborhood level covariates, we compare previously covenanted neighborhoods to neighborhoods without covenants. Today, previously covenanted neighborhoods have higher life expectancy and lower rates of obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, and asthma than neighborhoods without racially restrictive covenants. Additionally, previously covenanted neighborhoods have less upward mobility for children from poorer households, and there are larger gaps in upward mobility between white and Black children. These findings contribute to a growing literature that shows racist policies, even decades after they are legally enforceable, leave an imprint on neighborhoods. Using the novel data from the Mapping Prejudice Project, we provide statistical analysis that confirms qualitative and anecdotal evidence on the role of racial covenants in shaping neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reliable electricity, elevators, heat, hot water, and water are aspects of safe and accessible housing. Interruptions to these services represent a persistent challenge faced by public housing residents in the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). We compiled outage data spanning 2020–2022 from NYCHA's online service interruptions portal and paired these data with demographic and meteorological sources to understand the burden of these outages. To ease dissemination of these data—a spatiotemporally granular outage dataset that could fill gaps surrounding urban outage health impacts—we provide a public dashboard for visualization and download of the service interruption data in an analysis-ready format. We demonstrated that (1) outages often exceeded health-relevant restoration windows (e.g., 8 h for electrical interruptions); (2) senior developments (exclusively residents 62 +) had the longest duration of elevator, heat, and hot water outages; and (3) outages sometimes overlapped with temperature extremes—potentially increasing their health risk. Residents of NYCHA, who are predominately low-income, Black, and Hispanic face a disproportionate burden of service interruptions. Like all New Yorkers, NYCHA residents deserve to live in dignified housing that is safe and accessible. Addressing service interruptions are one way to make public housing safer and push toward climate and environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Evaluate the social determinants of health (SDOH) associated with suicidality among female Service Members and Veterans (SMV) in Arizona. Methods: Used data from a statewide Arizona Veteran Survey (n = 1,134) to analyze SDOH associated with suicidality (any self-report of suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, or calling a crisis line). Response data were cross-tabulated and analyzed for statistical significance using a chi-square test with a p-value of p < 0.05. Results: Depression, disability, barriers to treatment, housing instability, feelings of loneliness, and more were associated with increased suicidality among respondents. Substance use within the last 30 days, social support, and Veteran social support were not found to be significantly associated with suicidality. Conclusions: Female SMV populations experiencing social, economic, and health disparities appear to be at higher risk for suicide. These findings suggest that future suicide prevention efforts may be more effective if tailored towards populations in need of additional support and social services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines, from a legal and economic perspective, the judicial response to rent controls in the EU focusing on three courts that operate at the fundamental rights and constitutional level: the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfGE), and the Italian Constitutional Court. Based on an analysis of a sample of judicial decisions rendered over time, a convergent trend emerges: these Courts have recognized and effectively protected the landlord's property rights against rent controls that were disproportionate and could not ensure a reasonable return on investment. This trend is prominent in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR: the Strasbourg Court has contributed to reshaping the distribution of power between tenants and landlords, encouraging the transition of Eastern and Southern European Countries to the common European housing market. In both upholding and striking down rent control measures, judges generally take market value and the comparative reference price as the preferred benchmarks for fair rent price. A consumption-based and financial characterization of housing, coupled with the fundamental right to derive economic benefits as core elements of the right to property, underpin the legal reasoning of the three Courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban trees are recognised worldwide as one of the most sustainable and effective nature-based solutions to combat the effects of climate change and improve the quality of life for city dwellers by cooling the air, absorbing pollutants and damping noise. Along with protection from flooding and soil retention/restoration, trees also symbolise beauty, aesthetic quality, and orientation in urban spaces. Nevertheless, the relationship between street/park trees and urban society is highly ambivalent when it comes to pollen emissions and allergies, but also due to clearing space for new housing, road extensions, or parking places, which is accepted by large sections of urban society. In addition, climate change in itself is a major challenge to urban trees, as they suffer from drought and are increasingly attacked by pests. Urban planners and community partnerships have already developed a range of strategies (from more expert-led approaches to participatory co-design and actions) to maintain, increase, and diversify tree cover. They have also created new habitats and at the same time caused competition for space in the city, where every square centimetre is fought over. Using the case studies from Central and Eastern Europe and also considering the examples from Northern America and Asia, this commentary highlights the ambivalent relationship between humans and nature in regard to urban trees. It also demonstrates that the acceptance of this ambivalence can be a key to the conservation and maintenance of urban biodiversity through the involvement of different stakeholders including citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the geography of land use control is shaped by various forces operating at multiple levels, how land use is regulated in the U.S. has been examined with a narrow focus on either intraregional variation (within a single region) or aggregate differences between regions. This article presents an investigation of the geographical distribution of land use control with explicit consideration of both local and regional factors. Using data from two nation-wide surveys and other sources of information, it shows that substantial variation exists not only between regions but also within regions, calling for more attention to what matters and at what level. It is also found that the multilevel determinants of land use regulations are not uniform across regulation types. While low-density zoning is largely determined by local factors with limited interregional variation, a higher level of heterogeneity between regions is detected for impact fees and affordable housing requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Social vulnerability may play a role in social media-involved crime, but few studies have investigated this issue. We investigated associations between social vulnerability and social media-involved violent crimes. Methods: We analyzed 22,801 violent crimes occurring between 2018 and 2023 in Prince George's County, Maryland. Social media involvement was obtained from crime reports at the Prince George's County Police Department. Social media application types included social networking, advertising/selling, ridesharing, dating, image/video hosting, mobile payment, instant messaging/Voice over Internet Protocol, and other. We used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Social Vulnerability Index to assess socioeconomic status (SES), household characteristics, racial and ethnic minority status, housing type and transportation, and overall vulnerability. Modified Poisson models estimated adjusted prevalence ratios (aPRs) among the overall sample and stratified by crime type (assault and homicide, robbery, and sexual offense). Covariates included year and crime type. Results: Relative to high tertile areas, we observed a higher prevalence of social media-involved violent crimes in areas with low SES vulnerability (aPR: 1.82, 95% CI: 1.37-2.43), low housing type and transportation vulnerability (aPR: 1.53, 95% CI: 1.17-2.02), and low overall vulnerability (aPR: 1.63, 95% CI: 1.23-2.17). Low SES vulnerability areas were significantly associated with higher prevalences of social media-involved assaults and homicides (aPR: 1.64, 95% CI: 1.02-2.62), robberies (aPR: 2.00, 95% CI: 1.28-3.12), and sexual offenses (aPR: 2.07, 95% CI: 1.02-4.19) compared to high SES vulnerability areas. Low housing type and transportation vulnerability (vs. high) was significantly associated with a higher prevalence of social media-involved robberies (aPR: 1.54, 95% CI:1.01-2.37). Modified Poisson models also indicated that low overall vulnerability areas had higher prevalences of social media-involved robberies (aPR: 1.71, 95% CI: 1.10-2.67) and sexual offenses (aPR: 2.14, 95% CI: 1.05-4.39) than high overall vulnerability areas. Conclusions: We quantified the prevalence of social media-involved violent crimes across social vulnerability levels. These insights underscore the need for collecting incident-based social media involvement in crime reports among law enforcement agencies across the United States and internationally. Comprehensive data collection at the national and international levels provides the capacity to elucidate the relationships between neighborhoods, social media, and population health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the unintended socioeconomic consequences of housing market regulations, focusing on the home purchase restriction (HPR) policy implemented in cities across China. While the primary aim of the HPR policy is to curb property prices by limiting the number of properties a household can purchase, its broader impact on family formation, particularly marriage and divorce patterns, remains underexplored. Applying Becker's economic theory of marriage, which views marital decisions as rational choices influenced by socioeconomic factors, this study examines how the HPR policy affects family formation and dissolution across different city tiers and age groups in China. Our analysis reveals several key findings. First, the HPR policy effectively contributed to a decrease in house prices, aligning with its primary objective. However, it also led to delayed marriages among younger age groups, especially in first-tier cities, where housing affordability is a significant concern. Second, the policy inadvertently encouraged strategic divorces, allowing couples to circumvent purchase restrictions and acquire additional properties. This loophole undermines the policy's effectiveness in reducing housing demand and stabilizing prices. These results highlight the complex interplay between housing market regulations and family demographics, emphasizing the need for policymakers to consider the broader societal impacts of non-family-oriented policies. As China, like many other societies, faces challenges related to the second demographic transition—such as declining marriage and fertility rates—the findings of this study serve as a cautionary tale. Housing policies, while effective in addressing market concerns, can have significant and sometimes counterproductive effects on family stability and formation, potentially exacerbating the demographic trends a society aims to mitigate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Achieving zero-energy targets in residential buildings is challenging due to improper energy design and the selection of energy-related systems. Moreover, the absence of benchmarks for zero-energy residential buildings, along with the scarcity of studies tailored to diverse climates and building characteristics, highlights the urgent need for further research. This study aimed to address these gaps by designing zero-energy buildings to suit diverse climate zones in Jordan, acting as benchmarks to enhance energy efficiency and promote renewable energy use in the residential sector. Methods: Energy simulation tools were employed to design and verify zero-energy systems. The energy use intensity (EUI) results from the IDA ICE tool were compared with the reported targets and OpenStudio tool outcomes, ensuring that deviations among the proposed designs within the same climate zone consistently remained within acceptable limits, averaging 2, 1, and 1 kWh/m2 year in 1B (very hot dry), 2B (hot dry), and 3B (warm dry), respectively. Additionally, an economic evaluation was conducted by comparing the cost estimates of a Jordanian code-compliant house and the most acceptable proposed zero-energy design. Results: The proposed designs exhibited average EUI values of 64.4, 64, and 60 kWh/m2 in diverse climate zones. Outperforming typical Jordanian houses by 56%, 55%, and 60% in 1B, 2B, and 3B, respectively, these designs surpassed national and international benchmarks by at least 35%. Notably, the proposed zero-energy designs achieved substantial cost savings of 1938 USD, equivalent to 11 USD per square meter, throughout the construction phase. Conclusions: Considering Jordan's ambitious energy strategy for 2030 and the significant energy consumption in the residential sector, the proposed zero-energy building designs play a crucial role in advancing the national transition towards zero-energy buildings. This study provides valuable insights by presenting precise designs, benchmarks, and a comprehensive guide tailored to Jordan's distinctive building and climate characteristics with potential applications beyond its immediate context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social housing offers a way of promoting upward mobility and urban integration by improving people's access to economic and social opportunities. These are prominent goals of South Africa's social housing programme. In practice, household advancement tends to be taken for granted rather than deliberately pursued or monitored. We review survey data for 1632 households across ten social housing projects and find modest evidence of social mobility and racial integration. One reason for this is that other considerations have taken precedence during implementation. We conclude by identifying various ways of reaffirming the transformative goals of social housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The emergence and expansion of the digitally mediated, short-term rental (STR) market in Athens underplayed a key role in the rising inaccessibility to affordable housing, interrelating with broader transformations of the housing landscape, including i) the translation of the economic crisis into a housing one, ii) the unfolding of touristification processes in central Athenian districts and iii) the increased involvement of international investors and funds in the real estate market. In this paper, we bring out the role of STRs in the commodification and financialisation of housing and the unfolding of touristification processes in central Athens. We delineate the aforementioned developments as a series of successive waves, arguing that the STR market initially enabled the commodification of housing through its disassociation from the sphere of households' social reproduction and its assetisation, facilitating the engagement of domestic and foreign investors and the association of the housing landscape with financial flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the spatial and temporal dynamics of housing prices in Serbia, addressing the critical need to understand the drivers of real estate prices and their implications for economic and social welfare. Employing a panel data analysis approach on a unique dataset covering 24 distinct urban areas in Serbia from 2011 to 2021, we examine the relevance of diverse economic, demographic, and infrastructural indicators, providing novel insights within a developing country context. Our findings reveal that the housing market stock-flow model effectively predicts housing price appreciation trends, explaining over 60 percent of variation in property prices. Notably, disparities in labour income, captured by average wages and registered employment rates, emerge as significant determinants of real estate prices, underlining socio-economic disparities within Serbian cities. Housing prices exhibit a positive response to the population/housing stock ratio, suggesting higher prices in cities experiencing faster population growth relative to housing supply. Intensified construction is associated with elevated housing prices. Additionally, we find positive association between the inflation variable and housing prices, underlining real estate's potential as an inflation hedge. Public service provision and infrastructural amenities also emerge as contributors to higher housing prices in urban areas, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive urban planning strategies. Our study contributes to the literature by providing specific quantitative evidence, advancing the understanding of urban housing market dynamics in developing countries. By offering nuanced insights into determinants of housing prices, our research informs policymakers and urban planners seeking to foster equitable and sustainable urban development strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is recognised that migrants' access to housing in destination cities is shaped by a number of factors. This paper takes as its focus the processes of housing allocation for low-income West African migrants in the Bronx, New York City. Drawing on 37 semi-structured interviews with housing providers and intermediary organisations that perform housing-related functions, the paper builds upon literature on migration industries and informal housing solutions among migrant communities, and reveals the formal and informal systems which migrants must navigate in order to secure housing. The specific roles which housing providers and intermediary organisations – including housing advocacies NGOs, public institutions, and religious groups – play are highlighted. The paper shows that informal processes operating in the low-income housing market in the Bronx mirror the operations of formal institutional structures, but instead of financial and legal grounds for housing allocation, informal migration industries are centred on social ties within the established migrant community. Such arrangements provide much-needed access to affordable housing for low-income tenants and facilitate further migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The residualization of public rented housing is a prevalent phenomenon throughout Europe, and strongly present in the small and strongly means-tested social housing sector in Norway. In this article, we discuss the contested geographical dimension of residualization. Scientific studies of the geographical and locational aspects of social housing are scare in Norway and modest internationally. Based on qualitative interviews with representatives of social housing administrators in the fifteen largest urban municipalities in Norway, this paper contributes to the literature by exploring how these social housing bureaucrats perceive, reflect on, and respond to, questions related to the spatial localization of residual social housing. Does it matter where social housing is located? What are the consequences of the geography of social housing for tenants, their neighbours, and the wider socio-spatial development of cities? These are questions pondered in the interviews. In our qualitative analysis, we identify three broad themes. First, the theme of the internal social milieu – inclusive communities versus neighbour complaints and conflicts in the public housing projects. Second, the theme of neighbourhood effects; how concentrated poverty is influencing the local community in general and the upbringing of children in particular. Third, the theme of response from external neighbours and communities, in the form of either predominantly exclusive strategies (NIMBYism – Not in My Backyard), but also less prevalent inclusive strategies like (PHIMBYism – Public Housing In My Backyard). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is well established that wildfire smoke exposure can increase cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, the combined effects of non-chemical stressors and wildfire smoke remains understudied. Housing is a non-chemical stressor that is a major determinant of cardiovascular health, however, disparities in neighborhood and social status have exacerbated the cardiovascular health gaps within the United States. Further, pre-existing cardiovascular morbidities, such as atherosclerosis, can worsen the response to wildfire smoke exposures. This represents a potentially hazardous interaction between inadequate housing and stress, cardiovascular morbidities, and worsened responses to wildfire smoke exposures. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of enriched (EH) versus depleted (DH) housing on pulmonary and cardiovascular responses to a single flaming eucalyptus wildfire smoke (WS) exposure in male and female apolipoprotein E (ApoE) knockout mice, which develop an atherosclerosis-like phenotype. The results of this study show that cardiopulmonary responses to WS exposure occur in a sex-specific manner. EH blunts adverse WS-induced ventilatory responses, specifically an increase in tidal volume (TV), expiratory time (Te), and relaxation time (RT) after a WS exposure, but only in females. EH also blunted an increase in isovolumic relaxation time (IVRT) and the myocardial performance index (MPI) 1-week after exposures, also only in females. Our results suggest that housing alters the cardiovascular response to a single WS exposure, and that DH might cause increased susceptibility to environmental exposures that manifest in altered ventilation patterns and diastolic dysfunction in a sex-specific manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black women in community supervision programs (CSPs) are disproportionately affected by HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). A randomized controlled trial of a group intervention titled Empowering African-American Women on the Road to Health (E-WORTH) demonstrated effectiveness in reducing sexual risk behaviors and STI incidence among Black women in CSPs. This secondary analysis aimed to assess the moderating effects of housing status and food security on E-WORTH effectiveness in reducing sexual risk behaviors and cumulative incidence of STIs over a 12-month period which were found significant in the original trial among a sample of 351 Black women in CSPs in New York City who use drugs and/or engage in binge drinking who reported engaging in HIV risk behaviors or testing positive for HIV. We examined the moderating effects of housing stability, housing independence, and food insecurity on reducing cumulative STI incidence and number of unprotected sex acts using mixed-effects negative binomial regression and logistic regression models that controlled for age, high school education, employment status, and marital status. Findings indicate that the intervention effect was moderated by housing stability, but not housing independence or food security. Compared to the control group, E-WORTH participants who were housing insecure had 63% fewer acts of condomless sex. Our findings highlight the importance of interventions designed for women in CSPs that account for upstream determinants of health and include service linkages to basic needs provisions. Further research is needed to unpack the cumulative impacts of multiple experiences of poverty faced by this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study examines the relationship between homelessness and recidivism among people on probation with and without behavioral health problems. The study also illustrates a new way to summarize the effect of an exposure on an outcome, the Incremental Propensity Score (IPS) effect, which avoids pitfalls of other approaches commonly used in criminology. Methods: We assessed the impact of homelessness at probation start on rearrest within one year among a cohort of people on probation (n = 2453). We estimated IPS effects, considering general and crime-specific recidivism if subjects were more or less likely to be unhoused, and assessed effect variation by behavioral health problem status. We used a doubly robust machine learning estimator to flexibly but efficiently estimate effects. Results: A substantial intervention—reducing homelessness by roughly 65%—corresponded to a 9% reduction in the estimated average rate of recidivism (p < 0.05). Milder interventions showed smaller, non-significant effect sizes. Stratifying by behavioral health problem and rearrest type led to similar results without statistical significance. Conclusions: Minding limitations related to observational data and generalizability, this study suggests large reductions in homelessness lead to significant reductions in rearrest rates. Efforts to reduce recidivism should include interventions that make homelessness less likely, but notable differences in recidivism will require these interventions be sizable. Meanwhile, efforts to establish recidivism risk factors should consider alternative effects, like IPS effects, to maximize validity and reduce bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just a few decades after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights pronounced housing as a human right in 1948, the concept of the home as shelter was overshadowed by home ownership and asset creation, resulting in inadequate affordable housing, or homelessness for many, in urban contexts. Despite this, the house as a material and spatial artefact and the production of the home are consistently in negotiation by individuals and groups who are marginalized from the hegemonic private housing and real estate system. This article is an examination of the ways in which radical practices of everyday homemaking can inform professional design practice and policy to facilitate better housing for dignified inhabitation. The study of houses self-built or upgraded in Mumbai, India, and Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom, demonstrate that living takes place through shifting imaginations of the house as property to that of the home, involving aspiration and flexibility. This form of design is produced by persistently reworking the home, through innovative design solutions that assemble spatial and material bricolages and non-standard designs, implemented by a slew of small-time contractors and workers that form an extended ecology of design practice. These findings open new logics of delivery systems and consequent configurations of space that enrich lived relationships, experiences, and imaginations, often overlooked by mainstream frameworks of housing. This article, therefore, expands the debate on housing quantity to meet the current housing needs, to include quality of living within these, that can be influenced through a reformulation of professional design practice and policy. Comparing the two cities across the Global South and the Global North develops an understanding of generalizations and the particularities related to housing contexts, and informs how housing precarity operates beyond a certain locality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessible housing plays a crucial role in supporting aging in place, yet Japan lacks adequate tools for assessing housing accessibility among older adults. This study describes the process of translating and adapting the environmental component checklist of the Swedish Housing Enabler instrument for valid use in Japan. During translation to the Japanese language, technical terms and specifications were adjusted to match Japanese standards and guidelines. To validate the content of the instrument's checklist for the environmental component, an expert panel including occupational therapists, architects, and care managers was used. Relevance in a Japanese housing context was rated for all items on a scale from 1 to 4 (higher = more relevant), and a content validity index (0–1) was calculated for each item. After consensus discussions, the expert panel suggested revisions, including removal and addition of items, to better capture the characteristics of Japanese housing and building design. A final checklist of 261 items for the Japanese Housing Enabler was suggested. While 15 items were removed due to their lack of relevance to Japanese housing, 115 items were added. More than 90% of the items had a content validity index that exceeded the recommended threshold for relevance (≥ 0.78). Although the study results support the cultural relevance and content validity of this new instrument for assessing housing accessibility in Japan, the large number of items may compromise its feasibility. Aspects such as feasibility, criterion-related validity, and interrater reliability require investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates the impact of a policy popularly known as "redlining" on marriage. This policy led to the creation of a series of maps that guided banks in their lending, where some areas were favored and others were discriminated against. Given the quasi-randomness of mortgage discrimination, this policy allows us to make inferences regarding whether housing credit constraints affect marriage. Furthermore, it also provides insight into whether unequal access to housing credit played a role in the contemporary racial marriage gap. This policy allows us to make these inferences due to the fact that neighborhood blocks that were more heavily discriminated against had higher proportions of Black residents. The study uses a spatial differences in discontinuities design to show that the maps led to a reduction in marriage in discriminated areas. These effects are shown to not be due to sorting. They can also be ascribed to the housing credit mechanism per se, rather than competing second-order mechanisms that result from individuals being denied mortgages. These second-order effects can include, for instance, neighborhood decline effects found in other redlining work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racist public policies in the US, like redlining, segregated many communities of color to resource poor and impoverished areas, and codified how resources were distributed to communities based on race. Redlining, a historic discriminatory housing policy used to value city neighborhoods by race has codified segregation in cities today. Research has shown how the practice of redlining has shaped the economic and social fabric of modern U.S. cities, but only recently have researchers explored how these discriminatory policies have influenced the ecology in cities. Here, we used camera trap data collected in the Washington, D.C. region to assess if historic redlining impacts medium-sized mammal diversity in present day. We found no significant difference in species richness or community composition among historic neighborhood classifications. We did find that urbanization alone had a significant negative correlation with the persistence of raccoon and occupancy of Virginia opossum, but these variables did not vary significantly between housing classifications for any species. Our study adds to a growing body of knowledge on how historic land use decisions affect biodiversity in cities, allowing managers to better understand where conservation and habitat improvements should be made to reduce nature inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth involved in child welfare may benefit from programming that enhances their relationship skills given their susceptibility to engaging in high-risk interpersonal behaviors that can lead to challenges such as, engaging in or experiencing violence, housing and job insecurity, and poor physical and mental health. This research explored the feasibility of implementing an evidence-based healthy relationships program, the Healthy Relationships Plus Program - Enhanced (HRP-E), with youth involved in child welfare. Over 9 months, four HRP-E groups were facilitated at a Children's Aid Society in Ontario, Canada, involving 28 youth. Interviews were conducted with facilitators (n = 5) and youth (n = 13) to examine their views of the program. Facilitators also completed surveys that evaluated the facilitation of each session and overall program implementation. A thematic analysis of the data was conducted and results indicated that the HRP-E was perceived as a valuable program that is relevant and useful for youth involved in child welfare. Participants highlighted trauma-informed practices and organizational resources that are required when facilitating the HRP-E within a child welfare context. The present findings address the theory-to-practice gap by illustrating the practical application of trauma-informed program facilitation. The outcomes of this study contribute to understanding considerations and best practices for implementing a healthy relationships program with youth involved in child welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Supportive housing (SH), largely consisting of Transitional Living Programs (TLPs) and Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH), is the primarly intervention being applied to the one-in-ten young adults that experience homelessness in the United States each year. To date, efforts to understand the perception of these programs among young adult tenants have focused singularly on TLPs or PSH. The current qualitative study builds upon previous evidence through a comparative analysis of young adult perceptions of TLPs and PSH and examines the the physical, social, and service environments associated with each program. Results suggest six themes, including three themes focused on factors associated with location, common to both TLPs and PSH: desired proximity to friends, family, and amenities; wanted distance from negative influences; and increased ability to assimilate. Three additional themes focused on the environment internal to the housing program that differentiated the models: shared space with roommates, the service environment and relationships with SH staff, and the moving on process. Findings indicate that location is an important but complex element of the housing environment for all young SH tenants with both positive and negative factors. Within the housing environment, more TLP residents had roommates and spoke of utilizing the services associated with their housing, but discussed feeling less prepared for life after SH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Sweden, people living independently and requiring daily living support can access 'housing support', a form of practical, educational, and social support provided by the municipalities. About two-thirds of those receiving this support have neurodevelopmental conditions, primarily autism or ADHD. Many are young adults in the process of adapting to new roles and expectations in different life domains, including education, work, and accommodation. This study aimed to provide a qualitative description of support workers' views on current practice in housing support for young adults (aged 18 to 29) with neurodevelopmental conditions. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 34 housing support workers across 19 Swedish regions. An inductive qualitative content analysis approach was used. The interviews depicted a complex service, subject to organizational aspects (roles, responsibilities, availability, and allocation), the joint effort of key players (young adults, relatives, and support workers), and practical aspects of service provision (finding common ground for the work, and delivery of support). Some elements of the service were poorly designed for the target group. The support workers expressed a need for more knowledge about neurodevelopmental conditions, but also described new insights related to remote delivery of support. The results raise important questions about how housing support should be organized and delivered to strike the right balance between support and autonomy, meet specific needs, and ensure equal services across municipalities. Future research should adopt multiple perspectives and approaches, to help translate best practice and available evidence into a flexible and sustainable service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to the current housing crisis in Greece and to offer a critical assessment of existing interventions on social policy. It focuses on the way in which the multiple crises over the past 15 years and their management have exacerbated social inequalities. Housing represents an illustrative case study. In terms of housing resources, a systematic process of reverse redistribution is attempted, from the lower and middle social classes towards higher ones, by the Greek governments. The framework for managing the existing challenges of housing precariousness, such as rising rents, non-performing loans, foreclosure auctions, energy poverty phenomena, and the privatization of the energy market, as well as the resulting landscapes of humanitarian crisis (homelessness and refugee management), all lead to a deterioration of housing conditions. This phenomenon is inherently connected with the values underlying neoliberal social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To assess the association between air pollution exposure and housing context during pregnancy and adverse birth outcomes. Methods: We linked air pollution data from the Environmental Protection Agency and housing data from the American Community Survey with birth records from Wisconsin counties over a 9-year period. We calculated average daily pregnancy exposure to fine particulate matter and ozone and modeled its relationship to preterm birth, low birthweight and NICU admission, adjusting for individual characteristics and housing context. Results: Ozone exposure and housing cost-burden had substantive and statistically significant negative associations with birthweight and gestational age, and positive associations with NICU admission, while a poor-quality housing environment had a significant negative effect on weeks of gestation. Fine particulate matter exposure had a negligible correlation with these outcomes. Conclusions for practice: An additional tenth of one part-per-million daily average exposure to ozone is associated with a 33 g decrease in birthweight. This decrease in birthweight is about the same size as the association of gestational diabetes (32 g), larger than the association of chronic hypertension (22 g), and about 40% the size of the effect of smoking during pregnancy on birthweight (84 g). Given the magnitudes of the associations with atmospheric ozone and adverse birth outcomes, reducing atmospheric ozone should be a public health priority. Inclusion of controls for housing cost-burden and poor-quality housing reduces the magnitude of the association with mothers who identify as Black, suggesting the importance of these structural factors in understanding adverse birth outcomes by race. Significance: What is already known on this subject: It is well documented that poor birth outcomes are linked to experiences of social and economic disadvantage, however, environmental correlates of poor birth outcomes are under-researched. Existing research does not account for the ways in which environmental, sociodemographic, and structural factors could confound each other given the concentration of environmental pollutants in communities of color and low-income communities. What this study adds: In this paper, we account for individual sociodemographic characteristics, access to emergency infant healthcare, and neighborhood housing factors to clarify the independent association of air pollution on birth outcomes in Wisconsin across a nine-year period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature has widely explored the individual roles of housing and neighborhood quality, and there is limited research examining their interactive effects on mental health. This 3-year cohort study utilized a longitudinal design to investigate the individual and interactive effects of housing and neighborhood quality on mental health among 962 community-dwelling adults in Hong Kong. Participants were asked to rate their residential qualities over the 3-year period. Mental health outcomes, including levels of psychological distress and common mental disorders (CMD), were assessed using the Revised Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS-R). Logistic regression and generalized linear models were used to examine the association between housing and neighborhood quality and CMD/psychological distress, adjusting for sociodemographic and residential characteristics and baseline mental disorders. Housing quality was associated with the 3-year CMD (adjusted OR 0.95; 95% CI 0.91 to 0.98). Likewise, neighborhood quality was associated with CMD over 3 years (adjusted OR 0.92; 95% CI 0.87 to 0.96). In a separate model including both quality measures, the effect of housing quality on CMD was attenuated, whereas the neighborhood impact remained significant (adjusted OR 0.92; 95% CI 0.87 to 0.98). Generalized linear models indicated that for participants residing in substandard housing, those with high neighborhood quality had lower CIS-R scores at follow-up compared to those with low neighborhood quality (p = 0.041). Better neighborhood quality alleviated the detrimental effects of poor housing quality on mental health. Planning for an enhanced neighborhood would improve population mental health in an urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial residential segregation has been deemed a fundamental cause of health inequities. It is a result of historical and contemporary policies such as redlining that have created a geographic separation of races and corresponds with an inequitable distribution of health-promoting resources. Redlining and racial residential segregation may have contributed to racial inequities in COVID-19 vaccine administration in the early stages of public accessibility. We use data from the National Archives (historical redlining), Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (contemporary redlining), American Community Survey from 1940 (historical racial residential segregation) and 2015–2019 (contemporary racial residential segregation), and Washington D.C. government (COVID-19 vaccination administration) to assess the relationships between redlining, racial residential segregation, and COVID-19 vaccine administration during the early stages of vaccine distribution when a tiered system was in place due to limited supply. Pearson correlation was used to assess whether redlining and racial segregation, measured both historically and contemporarily, were correlated with each other in Washington D.C. Subsequently, linear regression was used to assess whether each of these measures associate with COVID-19 vaccine administration. In both historical and contemporary analyses, there was a positive correlation between redlining and racial residential segregation. Further, redlining and racial residential segregation were each positively associated with administration of the novel COVID-19 vaccine. This study highlights the ongoing ways in which redlining and segregation contribute to racial health inequities. Eliminating racial health inequities in American society requires addressing the root causes that affect access to health-promoting resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although widely acknowledged as an important social determinant of health, until recently researchers and policymakers have primarily approached housing insecurity as an urban issue, obscuring the visibility of its impacts in rural contexts, including the ways in which housing insecurity intersects with other health and structural inequities facing rural populations. Working to address this gap in the existing literature, this paper explores the experiences of housing insecurity in a rural context by reporting on an analysis of 210 in-depth interviews with 153 adults between the ages of 18–35, living in California's rural North State, a relatively overlooked far northern region of the state comprised of 12 north central and north eastern counties. Using in-depth qualitative interview data, we conducted an exploratory pattern-level analysis of participants' narratives structured by four dimensions of housing insecurity defined in the literature (housing affordability, housing stability, housing conditions, and neighborhood context). Drawing attention to the pervasiveness of rural housing insecurity within our sample, this analysis highlights the unique ways in which rurality creates distinct experiences not currently captured in the existing literature. Further research is needed across different types of rural communities to better understand the various ways that housing insecurity affects the everyday lives and health of rural residents. By grounding research within the experiences of rural residents, we are better able to respond to the crisis of rural housing insecurity and develop solutions that are tailored to rural residents' unique needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the utility of data on active and vacant residential addresses to inform local and timely monitoring and assessments of how areas impacted by wildfires and extreme weather events more broadly lose (or not) and subsequently recover (or not) their populations. Provided by the U.S. Postal Service to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other users, these data are an underutilized and potentially valuable tool to study population change in disaster-affected areas for at least three reasons. First, as they are aggregated to the ZIP + 4 level, they permit highly local portraits of residential and, indirectly, of population change. Second, they are tabulated on a quarterly basis starting in 2010 through the most recent quarter, thereby allowing for timely assessments than other data sources. Third, one mechanism of population change—namely, underlying changes in residential occupancies and vacancies—is explicit in the data. Our findings show that these data are sufficient for detecting signals of residential and, indirectly, of population change during and after particularly damaging wildfires; however, there is also noticeable variation across cases that requires further investigations into, for example, the guidance the U.S. Postal Services provides its postal offices and carriers to classify addresses as vacant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Intimate partner violence (IPV) can have devastating socioeconomic costs for survivors. Several policies exist to support survivors' socioeconomic stability, but little research examines their impacts. The present study investigates whether three state-level workplace protections for IPV survivors – (1) right to reasonable accommodations; (2) confidentiality; and (3) protection from discharge for abuse-related work disruptions – are associated with increased employment and housing stability in a sample of mothers who have experienced IPV. Method: Data on survivors came from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study; the analytic sample was limited to mothers who had experienced IPV. State policy protections were compiled and merged with Fragile Families data in order to indicate which mothers lived in states with certain protections. Three hierarchal logistic models that nested women (N = 1,296) within states (N = 37) tested associations of living in a state with each of the protective policies with employment status and housing hardship. Results: All three policies were associated with increased likelihood of employment, but none related with reduced risk for housing hardship. Conclusions: Reasonable accommodations, privacy protection, and protection from discharge help survivors keep their jobs. State efforts to implement widespread protections for IPV survivors offer promise for promoting socioeconomic stability, but additional policies are needed to promote stable housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We rely on novel textual analysis of real estate listings and identify renovated dwellings in a dataset of Norwegian transactions to estimate the renovation premium in an urban housing market. The renovation premium is estimated in a hedonic framework by classical regression approaches and a random forest algorithm. The strength of the latter is that it allows for a more complex interplay between the renovation premium and explanatory variables. We estimate a significant positive renovation premium of 5–7 percent for renovated dwellings and a negative premium of 9–10 percent for unmaintained/neglected dwellings. These averages mask significant variations in these premiums over time, particularly, a counter-cyclical effect. Omitting renovation information also has implications for estimated short-term house price growth. Unmaintained dwellings tend to transact more in the fourth quarter, indicating that parts of the seasonal price variation reported in the literature are due to compositional variation with respect to renovation. This composition effect bias price movement estimates downward, if uncontrolled for, as unmaintained dwellings transact at significantly lower prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews a large number of scholarly articles in the housing field spanning the last thirty years, from 1993 to 2022 by implementing bibliometric analysis method. We examine scientific outputs, identify influential articles, journals, international collaboration and evolution of research trends. Keywords such as "Housing price," "Housing policy," "Affordable housing," "Homeownership," "Housing market," "Urban planning," and "Neighborhood" have been identified as the most prevalently cited terms during this period. Furthermore, the prominence of terms such as "China," "Gentrification," "Public housing," "Social housing," "Homelessness," "Migration," "Urbanization," "Energy," "Inequality," "Land use," "Gender," and "Foreclosure" have grown in importance, pointing to future research trends. The analysis also reveals that articles pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic predominantly address the comprehensive effects of the virus on aspects of mental and physical health, consumer behavior, and economic and societal challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During China's transition towards land and housing marketization in the 1980s to 1990s, a series of legal and policy arrangements led to the separation of land ownership from land-use rights, followed by the separation of housing ownership from land-use rights. This has institutionally fragmented the housing property rights, allowing properties to be financialized as collaterals. Consequently, the fragmentation of housing property rights inflicts substantial risks on judicial auctions of foreclosed housing. As China's real estate sector is grappling with a mounting debt crisis, it becomes imperative to enhance the efficiency of judicial auctions to address bank debts and stabilize the housing financial system. By employing the cs-QCA method with a dataset comprising 136 cases of foreclosed properties, this study reveals the critical role of various configurations of property-rights risks in determining the outcome of judicial auctions. Additionally, it identifies the importance of credible commitments offered by the courts in mitigating property-rights risks. The research expects to provide practical and theoretical insights for China's courts and financial institutions to manage foreclosed properties effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laboratory mice are typically housed in "shoebox" cages with limited opportunities to engage in natural behaviour. Temporary access to environments with increased space and complexity (playpens) may improve mouse welfare. Previous work by our group has shown that mice are motivated to access and use these environments, but it is unknown how other aspects of welfare are impacted. Female C57BL/6J, BALB/cJ, and DBA/2J mice (n = 21; 7 mice per strain) were housed in mixed-strain trios and given temporary access to a large playpen with their cage mates three times per week. Control mice (n = 21; 7 mice per strain) remained in their home cages. Home cage behaviour (development of stereotypic behaviour over time, aggression following cage-changing) and anxiety tests were used to assess how playpen access impacted welfare. Contrary to our predictions, we found increased time spent performing stereotypies in playpen mice; this difference may be related to negative emotional states, increased motivation to escape the home cage, or active coping strategies. Playpen access resulted in strain-dependent improvements in aggression and some measures of anxiety. Aggression was lower for C57BL/6J mice in the playpen treatment following cage changing than it was for C57BL/6J control mice, while playpen mice, and particularly the C57BL/6J strain, spent more time in the center of the open field test and produced fewer fecal boli during anxiety testing, supporting other research showing that strain differences play an important role in behaviour and stress resiliency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's ecological crises are entwined with inequality dynamics, yet prevailing techno-economic approaches in climate research and policy fall short in addressing the ecological crisis as distributional crisis. Recognising the limitations of techno-economism, focused on markets (price adjustments) and technology (efficiency gains), this contribution introduces sufficiency corridors as a concept, research field, and policy approach. Sufficiency corridors represent the space between a floor of meeting needs and a ceiling of ungeneralisable excess, i.e. within the sufficiency corridor everyone has enough (to satisfy needs) while no one has too much (to endanger planetary boundaries and need satisfaction). Establishing such corridors entails a process over time that continuously narrows the gap between floors and ceilings, lifting the former and pushing down the latter by strengthening forms of consumption and production that contribute to need satisfaction while shrinking those that do not. The article discusses the profound implications of this approach for how societal reality is reproduced and/or changed, highlighting the need for decisions that eliminate options between and within sectors and in the realms of consumption and production. After addressing questions of decision-making and the potential to realise corridors, the contribution concludes that the growing scientific consensus to complement techno-economic approaches with sufficiency measures remains inadequate. Instead, the possibility of a transformation by design hinges on embedding techno-economism within and subordinating it to a sufficiency framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Given the growing emphasis on patient outcomes, including postoperative complications, in total joint arthroplasty (TJA), investigating the rise of outpatient arthroplasty is warranted. Concerns exist over the safety of discharging patients home on the same day due to increased readmission and complication rates. However, psychological benefits and lower costs provide an incentive for outpatient arthroplasty. The influence of social determinants of health disparities on outpatient arthroplasty remains unexplored. One metric that assesses social disparities, including the following individual components: socioeconomic status, household composition, minority status, and housing and transportation, is the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI). As such, we aimed to compare: (1) mean overall SVI and mean SVI for each component and (2) risk factors for total complications between patients undergoing inpatient and outpatient arthroplasty. Methods: Patients who underwent TJA between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022 were identified. Data were drawn from the Maryland State Inpatient Database (SID). A total of 7817 patients had TJA within this time period. Patients were divided into inpatient arthroplasty (n = 1429) and outpatient arthroplasty (n = 6338). The mean SVI was compared between inpatient and outpatient procedures for each themed score. The SVI identifies communities that may need support cause by external stresses on human health based on four themed scores: socioeconomic status; household composition and disability; minority status and language; and housing and transportation. The SVI uses the United States Census data to rank census tracts for each individual theme, as well as an overall social vulnerability score. The higher the SVI, the more social vulnerability, or resources needed to thrive in that area. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify independent risk factors for total complications following TJA after controlling for risk factors and patient comorbidities. Total complications included: infection, aseptic loosening, dislocation, arthrofibrosis, mechanical complication, pain, and periprosthetic fracture. Results: Patients who had inpatient arthroplasty had higher overall SVI scores (0.45 vs. 0.42, P < 0.001). The SVI scores were higher for patients who had inpatient arthroplasty for socioeconomic status (0.36 vs. 0.32, P < 0.001), minority status and language (0.76 vs. 0.74, P < 0.001), and housing and transportation (0.53 vs. 0.50, P < 0.001) compared to outpatient arthroplasty, respectively. There was no difference between inpatient and outpatient arthroplasty for household composition and disability (0.41 vs. 0.41, P = 0.99). When controlling for comorbidities, inpatient arthroplasty [Odds Ratio (OR) 1.91, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.23–2.95, P = 0.004], hypertension (OR 2.11, 95% CI 1.23–3.62, P = 0.007), and housing and transportation (OR 2.00, 95% CI 1.17–3.42, P = 0.012) were independent risk factors for total complications. Conclusion: Inpatient arthroplasty was associated with increased social disparities across several components of deprivation as well as an independent risk factor total complications following TJA. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the negative repercussions of inpatient arthroplasty through the lens of social disparities and can target specific areas for intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Low socioeconomic status based on neighborhood of residence has been suggested to be associated with poor outcomes after total joint arthroplasty (TJA). The area deprivation index (ADI) is a scale that ranks (zero to 100) neighborhoods by increasing socioeconomic disadvantage and accounts for median income, housing type, and family structure. We sought to examine the potential differences between high (national median ADI = 47) and low ADI among TJA recipients at a single institution. Specifically, we assessed: (1) 30-day emergency department visits/readmissions; (2) 90-day and 1-year revisions; as well as (3) medical and surgical complications. Methods: A consecutive series of primary TJAs from September 21, 2015, through December 29, 2021, at a tertiary healthcare system were reviewed. A total of 3,024 patients who had complete ADI data were included. Patients were divided into groups below the national median ADI of 47 (n = 1,896) and above (n = 1,128). Multivariable regressions to determine independent risk factors accounting for ADI, race, age, sex, American Society of Anesthesiologists Classification grade, body mass index, diabetes, congestive heart failure (CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, alcohol abuse, substance abuse, and tobacco use. The primary outcomes of interest include evaluation of the independent association of ADI with total postoperative complications (at 30 days, 90 days, and 1 year) after adjusting for multiple relevant cofactors. Results: After adjusting for multiple relevant cofactors, at 90 days, ADI > 47 (OR, 1.36, 95% CI 1.00–1.83, P = 0.04), men versus women (OR, 0.73, 95% CI 0.54–0.99, P = 0.039), and CHF (OR, 1.90, 95% CI 1.18–3.06, P = 0.009) were independently associated with increased total complications. The ADI was not associated with increased total complications at 30 days or 1-year (All P > 0.05). Conclusion: Our findings of higher complications of the ADI > 47 cohort at 90 days, reaffirm the complex relationship between ADI, patient demographics, and additional socioeconomic parameters that may influence postoperative outcomes and complications after TJA. This study utilizing ADI demonstrates potential areas of intervention and further investigation for assessing arthroplasty outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Rental assistance programs have been linked to better housing quality, stability, healthcare access, and reduced likelihood of uncontrolled diabetes. However, its direct association with diabetes screening is uncertain. Objective: To determine whether federal rental assistance programs are associated with lower odds of undiagnosed diabetes. Design: We used a quasi-experimental approach, comparing outcomes among adults receiving rental assistance to those who entered assisted housing within 2 years after their health data were collected. We test the a priori hypothesis that rental assistance will be associated with decreased odds of undiagnosed diabetes. Participants: Participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2018 who received rental assistance and who had diabetes. Intervention: Current rental assistance participation, including specific housing programs. Main Measures: Undiagnosed diabetes based on having hemoglobin A1c ≥ 6.5% but answering no to the survey question of being diagnosed with diabetes. Key Results: Among 435 eligible adults (median age 54.5 years, female 68.5%, non-Hispanic white 32.5%), 80.7% were receiving rental assistance programs at the time of the interview, and 19.3% went on to receive rental assistance within 2 years. The rates of undiagnosed diabetes were 15.0% and 25.3% among those receiving rental assistance programs vs. those in the future assistance group (p-value = 0.07). In an adjusted logistic regression model, adults receiving rental assistance had lower odds of undiagnosed diabetes (OR 0.52, 95% CI 0.28–0.94) than those in future assistance groups. Sex, race and ethnic group, educational level, and poverty ratio were not significantly associated with having undiagnosed diabetes, but individuals aged 45–64 years had significantly lower odds of undiagnosed diabetes (OR 0.21, 95% CI 0.08–0.53) compared with those aged 18–44. Conclusions: Rental assistance was linked to lower odds of undiagnosed diabetes, suggesting that affordable housing programs can aid in early recognition and diagnosis, which may improve long-term outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A disaster community's priority is to ensure the safety of populations during natural hazards. Disaster risk reduction strategies require knowledge of what is hazardous, who is vulnerable, and what is risky. As of now, engineering methods predominate in Russian disaster research, while social science rarely analyzes floods, earthquakes, wildfires, etc. Study aims to test the applicability of new methods for delineating flood hazards, characterizing social vulnerability, and determining overall societal risk in Russia. Multidisciplinary nature makes the problem complex. The research will concentrate on the ten representative counties of the Kuban River basin in a southern Russian region, where at the beginning of the XXI century catastrophic floods led to enormous fatalities and huge economic damage. Flood hazards are assessed based on the county-scale spatial distribution of records produced by a Regional Early Warning System, impact information, and flood management infrastructure. Social vulnerability is investigated using a County Comparable Social Vulnerability Profiling model that encompasses three pillars (physical, socio-economic and awareness), nine themes (age, disability, poverty, etc.), and seventeen census variables (aged 0–19 years, density, one-person household in detached housing, only nine years of school, etc.). Finally, a holistic flood risk map is compiled. The results show that the three riskiest counties require measures to reduce flood hazard and social vulnerability in all phases of disaster risk management (mitigation, preparation, emergency, and rehabilitation). Data-poor nations such as Russia can benefit from these methods, but their use is limited by insufficient flood hazard and census information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the principle-agency problem between landlords and real estate agents using novel data on rental contracts. Real estate agents are found to obtain higher contract rents by approximately 1% more for themselves (and family members) than for other landlords, which is economically small. The results suggest that the principle-agency program with real estate agents is less of a concern in the rental market than the ownership market. The reason potentially relates to the commission structure, the relatively low effort associated with finding a tenant, the landlord's ability to evaluate an agent's performance, and reputation concerns from repeated interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contagion occurs when cross-market correlation increases because of a shock to one market. Identifying shocks as episodes of house price exuberance, we provide evidence for contagion effects among the largest metropolitan markets in the US. We find that changes in income, interest rates, and unemployment also create contagion effects. These empirical findings are consistent with a model in which shocks to house prices and economic variables relax household down payment constraints and increase household mobility and housing demand. These effects are explored in an equilibrium framework in which house prices and household choices are determined endogenously, and we account for this endogeneity in our empirical study. Our results are robust to various empirical specifications, and we discuss the implications of these findings for households and investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]