scholarly journals Population density and the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: comparing the geography of the first and second wave in the Netherlands

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem Rogier Boterman

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted public and scholarly debate about the relationship between infectious disease and the urban. Cities are considered contagious because they are hubs in (inter)national networks and contain high densities of people. However, the role of the urban and population density in the spread of pathogens is complex and is mediated by the wider bio-social environment. This paper analsyes the role of population density in the outbreak of COVID-19 in the densely and highly urbanized context of the Netherlands. It compares the geography of the different phases in the epidemic and assesses when and where density plays a role. Using municipal data on the rate of infections and hospitalizations this paper reveals that spatial patterns differ substantially in time, which does not appear to be simple diffusion. Using panel regressions it is demonstrated that population density plays a role in those stages in which containment and mitigation measures were least strict, while in periods of lock down other factors such as household size are associated with higher infection rates. It concludes that lock downs may have greater effect in urban areas as key elements of urbanity are temporarily cancelled out.

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S779-S779
Author(s):  
Alycia N Bisson ◽  
Margie E Lachman

Abstract Modifiable health behaviors, such as physical activity and sleep quality are important for cognition throughout life. A growing body of research also suggests that engaging in enough physical activity is important to sleeping well. One recent study found that sleep efficiency mediates the relationship between physical activity and cognition. It is still unknown whether other metrics of sleep quality are mediators. The present study tested mediation in the second wave of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study. Using the PROCESS macro for SPSS, we found that those who were more physically active fell asleep faster, and had better executive functioning. In addition, those who were more physically active reported waking up fewer times during the night, and had better executive functioning and self-rated memory. Discussion will focus on the moderating role of gender and distinctions between findings with different measures of sleep, physical activity, and cognition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 5631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Brand ◽  
Cézane Priscila Reuter ◽  
Arieli Fernandes Dias ◽  
Jorge Mota ◽  
Michael Duncan ◽  
...  

A mother’s healthy conduct may lead to the healthy conduct of their children. Thus, this study aimed to verify the role of demographic factors in the relationship between mothers’ physical activity (PA) and commuting to work with children and adolescent’s PA and commuting to school. This cross-sectional study comprised 1421 children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years and 1421 mothers, from Brazil. PA, commuting, socioeconomic status (SES), skin color/ethnicity, and living area were evaluated by questionnaire. Logistic binary regression models were used. Results indicated that mothers’ PA and commuting were associated with children and adolescent’s PA and commuting to school in crude and adjusted models. Considering the role of the demographic factors, an association was only observed for girls in the relationship between mother’s PA with children’s PA. In adolescents, an association was observed in both high/low SES, boys/girls, and rural/urban areas. Regarding children and adolescent active commuting to school, there was an association with mothers commuting. All demographic factors were strongly associated, except for rural areas. Therefore, mothers’ PA as well as commuting to work are associated with children and adolescent’s PA and commuting to school. Sex, living area, and SES are the related demographic factors.


Author(s):  
Sandra Walklate

It is without doubt that the 21st century is marked by ever-present 24-hour media. Mobile phones, iPads, and Wi-Fi networks mean that many people in many different parts of the world are “connected” to each other and to global events as they happen in ways not really imagined less than a century ago. Of course the nature of this connectivity is variable. It dominates more in some parts of the world than others, in urban areas more than rural, among wealthier communities more than poorer ones, and perhaps among younger people more than older people. Such variations notwithstanding, it is the case that the minute-by-minute live reporting of events, as they happen, exposes the nature of those events to people not necessarily close to them or impacted by them, albeit vicariously. Such exposure means that people are potentially witnesses to events and images they would not otherwise have experience of. It is within this context this article considers the concepts of victim, witness, and the linkages between them. The concept of the witness has a varied history, from its presence in the law, to its connections with religious affiliation, to its legacy in experiences of atrocity. These different historical legacies are suggestive of different claims to victimhood. Simultaneously, these different claims to the status of victim (who constitutes a victim and under what conditions) have become conflated. In mapping the trajectories of each of these concepts, it is possible to discern considerable fuzziness in the relationship between victim and witness, suggestive of a continuum from the victim as witness to the witness as victim. Moreover, when these two concepts are put in such a relationship with each other, it is possible to observe how transgressive capacity takes its toll on people, how to make sense of the issues that concern them, and how best to respond to those concerns. This article considers the questions posed by the relationship between being a victim and being a witness, paying particular attention to who is and who is not considered to have a legitimate claim to victim status, and the role of ever-present media coverage in contributing to such claims and/or even creating them.


2019 ◽  
pp. 0739456X1984504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erick Guerra ◽  
Xiaoxia Dong ◽  
Michelle Kondo

This study uses multilevel negative binomial models to investigate relationships between neighborhood socio-demographics, urban form, roadway characteristics, traffic collisions, injuries, and fatalities on the Philadelphia region’s streets from 2010 to 2014. We pay particular attention to neighborhood population density. Results indicate that streets in denser neighborhoods have fewer overall collisions, injuries, and fatalities. The association with pedestrian safety is mixed and somewhat uncertain across urban areas and model specifications. This study highlights the importance of population density in traffic safety and helps explain some of the variation in findings across studies examining the relationship between urban form and pedestrian safety.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Holian ◽  
Kala Seetharam Sridhar

This article re-examines the suburbanization of Indian cities by calculating population density gradients, for a large number of urban agglomerations, using recent data and Mills’ two-point method. In the next step, we estimate multiple regression models to explore the determinants of suburbanization. This study presents several methodological advances over previous research, by incorporating new measures of transport infrastructure, air pollution and city–suburb income ratios as determinants of suburbanization of Indian cities. Our results clearly show that suburbanization is higher in urban areas with higher population and lower central city–suburban literacy ratios. We find some evidence that suburbanization is higher in urban areas with more road transport infrastructure, consistent with our expectations, though results concerning air pollution run counter to expectations. However, these could relate to caveats regarding the data and methods.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaetano Di Mino ◽  
Marinella Giunta ◽  
Ciro Maurizio Di Liberto

Reducing ground borne vibrations in urban areas is a very challenging task in railway transportation. Many mitigation measures can be considered and applied; among these open trenches are very effective. This paper deals with the study of the effect, in terms of reduction of vertical and horizontal displacements and velocities, of the open trenches. 2D FEM simulations have been performed and several open trench configurations have been analysed varying the main geometric features such as width and depth, distance from the rail, thickness of the soil layer over the rigid bedrock, type of the ground, ratio between the depth of the trench, and the thickness of the soil layer. For quantifying the influence of the above specified parameters in reducing ground-borne vibrations an analysis using artificial neural networks (ANNs) has been carried out. Results show that among the geometric parameters the role of the depth of the trench is very significant; however the influence of the depth must be also evaluated in relation to the thickness of the soil layer.


2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 560-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen van der Waal ◽  
Willem de Koster

Leftist and rightist populist parties in Western Europe both oppose trade openness. Is support for economic protectionism also relevant for their electorates? We assess this in the Netherlands, where both types of populist parties have seats in parliament. Analyses of representative survey data ( n = 1,296) demonstrate that support for protectionism drives voting for such parties, as do the well-established determinants of political distrust (both populist constituencies), economic egalitarianism (leftist populist constituency) and ethnocentrism (rightist populist constituency). Surprisingly, support for protectionism does not mediate the relationship between economic egalitarianism and voting for left-wing populists, or the link between political distrust and voting for either left-wing or right-wing populist parties. In contrast, support for protectionism partly mediates the association between ethnocentrism and voting for right-wing populists. We discuss the largely independent role of protectionism in populist voting in relation to the cultural cleavage in politics and electoral competition, and also provide suggestions for future research.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Santini ◽  
Nick J.B. Isaac

AbstractThe negative relationship between body size and population density (SDR) in mammals is often interpreted as resulting from energetic constraints. In a global change scenario, however, this relationship might be expected to change, given the size-dependent nature of anthropogenic pressures and vulnerability to extinction. Here we test whether the SDR in mammals has changed over the last 50 years. We show that the relationship has shifted down and became shallower, corresponding to a decline in population density of 32-72%, for the largest and smallest mammals, respectively. However, the SDRs become steeper in some groups (e.g. carnivores) and shallower in others (e.g. herbivores). The Anthropocene reorganization of biotic systems is apparent in macroecological relationships that were previously believed to be immutable, reinforcing the notion that biodiversity pattens are contingent upon conditions at the time of investigation. We call for an increased attention on the role of global change on macroecological inferences.


2020 ◽  
Vol 76 (08) ◽  
pp. 6436-2020
Author(s):  
Ali Tumay GURLER ◽  
Cenk Soner BOLUKBAS ◽  
Aytac AKCAY ◽  
Gokmen Zafer PEKMEZCI ◽  
MUSTAFA AÇICI ◽  
...  

Toxocariasis is one of the most important parasitic zoonoses affecting human health. The main source of toxocariasis in humans is dog and cat faeces, which are primarily responsible for the contamination of urban areas with Toxocara spp. eggs. In this study, the relationship between dog or/and cat faeces and contamination of sand playgrounds in public parks with Toxocara spp. eggs was investigated. A total of 596 sand and 276 faecal samples (148 dog and 128 cat faeces samples) were collected from 52 public parks in Samsun. Toxocara spp. eggs were identified in 7% of sand samples, 33% of cat faeces samples and 9.5% and dog faeces samples. A positive correlation was found between the presence of faeces and the contamination of sand samples. The incidence of sand contamination was increased 8.3 times if a park contained dog or/and cat faeces, and the incidence was much greater if the faeces were infected with Toxocara spp. ova. Cat faeces had a greater effect on the contamination of sand than did dog faeces. The risk was 12.5 and 27 times greater if a park contained only cat faeces and infected cat faeces, respectively. However, no Toxocara spp. eggs were found in sand samples from parks that contained only dog faeces.


Author(s):  
Tiago Vinicius Silva Athaydes ◽  
Jefferson de Queiroz Crispim ◽  
Mauro Parolin

Sanitation in rural areas in Brazil is still very precarious, with deficits greater than in urban areas. In this sense, the central objective of this research is to evaluate the role of the Municipal Surveillance in the management of water quality in rural properties in the Midwestern region of Paraná, covering the beginning of the monitoring of water quality, the relationship of the Consolidation Ordinance No. 5 of 2017 of the Ministry of Health regarding the choices of parameters on potability indices in relation to the parameters analyzed in the Surveillance, the presence of outbreaks due to diseases arising from the consumption of contaminated water, the demand by residents and the partners who contribute to the realization of these activities. The data were obtained through the application of a semi-structured questionnaire, through the 11th Health Regional Office of Campo Mourão. It was presented that the municipalities have acted in the monitoring of water quality in an uneven way at the beginning of the activities, following the parameters of the Ordinance. The municipalities had demands and demands from residents and counted on the 11th Health Regional Office as the main partner in the monitoring support. Only Iretama presented an outbreak due to the consumption of contaminated water.


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