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Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Neighborhood Socioeconomic Context Predicts Pediatric Asthma Exacerbation, Ashley W. Kranjac, Zeev N. Kain, Louis Ehwerhemuepha, Michael Weiss, Brooke N. Jenkins Jul 2024

Neighborhood Socioeconomic Context Predicts Pediatric Asthma Exacerbation, Ashley W. Kranjac, Zeev N. Kain, Louis Ehwerhemuepha, Michael Weiss, Brooke N. Jenkins

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Causes of asthma exacerbation in children have been studied extensively at the individual level, but contributions of neighborhood-level factors are less explored. We test which distinctive residential characteristics produce variation in uncontrolled asthma among pediatric patients. We extracted electronic medical record data from pediatric patients living in Southern California and used multilevel modeling techniques to isolate which neighborhood characteristics drive inequitable asthma control. Above and beyond the individual-level factors known to predict inadequate disease control, neighborhoods with greater concentration of non-Hispanic black residents (odds ratios [OR] = 1.02; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.99-1.03; P < .05), higher proportions of female-headed households (OR = 1.01; 95% CI: 0.99-1.01; P < .05), and higher levels of ambient air pollution (OR = 1.05; 95% CI: 1.01-1.10; P < .001) associate with greater odds of asthma exacerbation. The interplay between community characteristics and asthma management during childhood is complex, and place-based initiatives are needed to narrow the gap in asthma exacerbation.


Decomposing Differences In Coronavirus Disease 2019-Related Case-Fatality Rates Across Seventeen Nations, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac Dec 2020

Decomposing Differences In Coronavirus Disease 2019-Related Case-Fatality Rates Across Seventeen Nations, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

As of 1 November 2020, estimated case-fatality rates associated with coronavirus disease 2019 are not uniformly patterned across the world and differ substantially in magnitude. Given the global spatial heterogeneity in case-fatality rates, we applied the Blinder-Oaxaca regression decomposition technique to identify how putative sociodemographic, structural, and environmental sources influence variation in case-fatality rates. We show that compositional and associational differences in country-level risk factors explain a substantial proportion of the coronavirus disease 2019-related case-fatality rate gap across nations. Asian countries fair better vis-à-vis case-fatality rate differences mainly due to variation in returns to sociodemographic, structural, and environmental sources among …