Digital Commons Network^™

Spatial Patterns Of Adverse Birth Outcomes Among Black And White Women In Massachusetts – The Role Of Population-Level And Individual-Level Factors, Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Madeline Haynes

Sustainability and Social Justice

This study explores spatial distribution of adverse birth outcomes (ABO), defined as low birth weight (<=2500 g) and preterm deliveries (gestational age <37 weeks), in black and white mothers in the state of Massachusetts, USA. It uses 817877 individual birth records from 2000-2014 aggregated to census tracts (census enumeration unit with population of approximately 4500 people). To account for small numbers of births in some tracts, an Empirical Bayes smoother algorithm is used to calculate ABO rates. The study applies ordinary least squares (OLS) and spatial regression to examine the relationship between ABO rates, seven individual-level factors from birth certificates and nine population-level factors (income level, education level, race) from census data. Explanatory power of these factors varies between the two races. In models based only on individual-level factors, all seven factors were significant (p<0.05) in the black mothers’ model while only three were significant in the white mothers’ model. Models based only on population-level variables produced better results for the white mothers than for black mothers. Models that included both individual and population-level variables explained 40% and 29% of ABO variance for black and white women respectively. The findings from this study give health-care providers and health-care policy-makers important information regarding ABO rates and the contributing factors at a local level, thus enabling them to isolate specific areas with the highest need for targeted interventions.

Analyzing The Relationship Between Perception Of Safety And Reported Crime In N Urban Neighborhood Using Gis And Sketch Maps, Yelena Ogneva-Himmelberger, Laurie Ross, Thomas Caywood, Marina Khananayev, Casey Starr

Sustainability and Social Justice

This study analyzes the perception of safety among residents of Main South neighborhood in Worcester, MA, USA and compares it to reported crimes. This neighborhood is the focus of a community-based crime reduction project funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the policy development arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. We collected social disorder and violent crime data from the Worcester Police Department and conducted 129 household surveys to understand residents’ perception of safety in the neighborhood and trust in community institutions. The surveys included a map on which residents indicated where they felt unsafe. The goal of this …

Analyzing Trends And Patterns In Adverse Birth Outcomes In Massachusetts From 2000-2014, Madeleine Haynes

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This study explores spatio-temporal trends and patterns in adverse birth outcomes (ABO) in the state of Massachusetts from 2000-2014. ABO include low birth weight (< 2500 g) and preterm deliveries (gestational age < 37 weeks). This research evaluates if there are areas in Massachusetts that have experienced statistically significant increases or decreases in ABO throughout the study period. Birth data was obtained from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and only singleton, live births were included for the analysis. The data were aggregated to census tracts, and the total number of births and the number of ABOs were calculated for each census tract for each year. In total, 1478 census tracts were included in this analysis. Births to non-Hispanic black mothers and births to non-Hispanic white mothers were separated to evaluate if trends in ABO are similar regardless of race as previous literature has identified a much higher rate of ABO in births to non-Hispanic black women. Trends and patterns of ABO were evaluated using the Space Time Cube and the Mann-Kendall statistic and a multivariate regression was conducted to identify potential correlations between socioeconomic factors and prevalence of ABO. Results of this study can be used to identify areas that are experiencing an increase in ABO to potentially allow for more effective, targeted intervention methods.

U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service Summer Fellowship: Gis Study Of Threatened And Endangered Species In Colorado, Jeanie Lai

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This report provides a detailed account of my fellowship experience with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Region 6 Office in Lakewood, CO during the summer of 2017 made possible by the Student Conservation Association (SCA) sponsored by Directorate Fellows Program. The internship was completed in the Region 6’s Branch of Decision Support in Ecological Services under the direction of Spatial Ecologist John Guinotte. I was a GIS Technician tasked with work responsibilities involving listed threatened and endangered species relevant to the region. Those work responsibilities included refining spatial Area of Influence (AOI) ranges, updating databases, and creating a …

A Summer At Azavea Working With Nonprofit Organizations: The Summer Of Maps Fellowship, Sarah Gates

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This report details my experience as a Summer of Maps Fellow at Azavea during June 2017 to August 2017. As a Summer of Maps Fellow I worked with nonprofit organizations, the Fair Tech Collective and the World Resources Institute, on two geospatial analysis projects. For the Fair Tech Collective I analyzed data on refinery flaring pollution, air toxin concentrations, and sensitive receptor populations to produce a series of maps and infographics detailing the impacts of petrochemical pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area. For the World Resources Institute I used data-driven methods to analyze conservation efforts in the Central African …

Greening The Gateway Cities: Summer Internship With The Clark University Human Environment Regional Observatory (Hero) And Massachusetts Department Of Conservation And Recreation (Dcr), Zhiwen Zhu

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This report provides a detailed account of my internship experience with the Clark University Human-Environment Regional Observatory (HERO) and Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) in the summer of 2017. This internship concerns the urban tree health assessment in three ‘Greening the Gateway’ cities in Massachusetts. During the internship, I conducted tree survey field work, database management, mapping, tree survey data analysis and urban tree plantation benefits microclimate simulation. During the internship I worked with the professors and students at Clark University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the staff from Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), Worcester Tree …

The Fight Against Botanical Invaders: Summer Internship With The Montana Conservation Corps And The U.S. Forest Service, Bryan S. Buttigieg

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This paper aims to synthesize and reflect upon my internship with the Montana Conservation Corps, and the U.S. Forest Service during the summer of 2016. The primary responsibilities as an intern under the USFS’s Vegetation Manager included eradicating and monitoring invasive weeds within the Hebgen Lake Ranger District, in West Yellowstone, MT. I gained a wealth of knowledge on how invasive plants take control of landscapes throughout Montana specifically. This opportunity provided me with the chance to develop both hands-on and GIS-based conservation efforts. The following chapters review my summer internship by diving deeper into the structural organization of the …

Data And Geometry; Model Building At Calthorpe Analytics, Samuel M. Upton

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This report documents my Summer 2016 internship with Calthorpe Analytics, a Berkeley CA based urban planning firm. Calthorpe Analytics specializes in scenario development for planning, modeling, and plan evaluation for government and municipal clients. The primary responsibility of my internship was model development and refinement using advanced spatial analytics working in the Python programming language. The internship was extremely successful: it gave me a great opportunity to strengthen my open source GIS skillset, deepen my understanding of data science, and vastly improve my geospatial programming skillset. It also gave me a chance to apply advanced geospatial modeling and spatial statistics …

Geoscientists-In-The-Park Summer Internship Mapping Shoreline Change With The National Park Service, Michael P. Endicott

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

This project paper details the activities carried out as a Geologist/GIS Specialist in the Gateway National Recreation Area as a part of the Geoscientists-In-The-Park internship program. The focus of this position was on supporting the geomorphological monitoring efforts of the National Park Service. This was accomplished through a combination of field data collection, GIS analysis, report writing, and project work. By the end of the internship, substantial progress was made to the formation of Gateway’s Annual 1D and 2D report for 2015-2016, field data were collected for the 2016 summer season, changes in geomorphology were explored and summarized for the …

Location-Based Modeling And Statistics Internship With Location, Inc., Yixuan Wang

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

In the summer 2016, I had the honor to work as a GIS & statistics intern at Location, Inc. It is a Software as a Service (SaaS) private company that builds and delivers location-based big data, analytics, tools, and services. The company’s mission is to create the best location-based technologies to help businesses make well-informed decisions (Location, Inc.). I was chosen by the company’s CEO, Dr. Andrew Schiller, who is also a Clark Alumnus. During the internship period, I worked in the data science team supervised by Jonathan Glick, and my main responsibilities were handling geographical and statistical …

Aiddata Gis International Fellowship: Ghana West-Africa, Jason N. Ready

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

My internship, or fellowship as it was commonly referred to, was funded by a non-profit organization out of Williamsburg Virginia called AidData. This fellowship took place in in the country of Ghana, West-Africa beginning in May of 2016 and continued for 14 weeks with 40 hours each week. The objective of this internship was to provide in-depth training on the use of geographic Information Systems to Private and Public sectors within the country to allow for increased efficiency, and transparency through data visualization. In accordance with the requirement of Clark Universities GISDE master’s program this paper will delve into the …

Gis And Spatial Analysis: Summer Internship With The Center For Health And Global Environment At The Harvard T.H. Chan School Of Public Health, Wensi Hu

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

The objective of the report is to introduce and discuss my internship at the Center for Health and Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in Boston, MA. The internship lasted four months from the middle of May to the middle of September, with 15 hours each week. My tasks included geocoding, developing GIS-calculated variables, data visualization/mapping and documentation. Creation of variables was vital as it included air quality data, land use map, greenness (NDVI), roads data as well as parks data.

I am happy that I have a chance to work under a professional environmental …

Monitoring Invasive Plant Species: Summer Internship At Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary, Belmont, Massachusetts, Holly M. Zanoni

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary, located in Belmont, Massachusetts is a dynamic suburban sanctuary that effectively upholds Mass Audubon’s three-part mission of advocacy, conservation, and education. Invasive plants threaten ecological integrity; however, proactive measures are taken to mitigate further encroachment. This is accomplished by surveying and taking inventory for presence of invasive species, then prioritizing them, and finally by incorporating high priority species into the immediate management strategy. Four invasive plants were formally analyzed using geographic information science during the 2014 growing season: Garlic mustard, Black swallowwort, Japanese knotweed, and Dame’s Rocket. The resulting density maps detected pattern changes from 2011, 2012, …