Geography Commons^™

Personal Factors Influencing Us Travelers’ Sentiments Toward Travel Policies To Cuba, Carol Kline, Whitney Knollenberg, Bynum Boley, Evan Jordan

Journal of Tourism Insights

The United States and Cuba have navigated a strained political and economic relationship over the past sixty years; the tone of the relationship is in flux according to Cuban and US leadership, and most recently, COVID-19. Anticipating US travelers’ sentiments towards access to Cuba is more crucial now because of resulting policies playing out within the intersection of the shifting dynamics of the virus and the tumultuous political climate within the US. This study identified the personal factors that influence US travelers’ sentiment towards the US trade embargo and travel restrictions to Cuba. Results reveal that respondents with higher educational …

Shifting Geopolitics: Reimagining Globalization And Spatial Representation In The Post Covid-19 Era, Victoria H. Bergström

The Journal of International Relations, Peace Studies, and Development

Abstract: Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the utilisation of maps has been at the forefront. Maps have informed policymakers, governments, and citizens of the distribution and spread of the disease. Although these maps have been used for various purposes, from border closures to curfews, there is an inherent danger in this widespread usage. Aside from the intricacy of these spatial representations, these widely distributed representations encourage isolationism and the reconception of borders in an increasingly globalised world. Furthermore, new connectivities through digital means have created a potential solution to international exchanges amidst physical limitations. Nevertheless, elitism prevents the …

Did The Covid Pandemic Result In An Exodus Of The Latino Population Of New York City And The New York Metropolitan Region?, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2021 One-Year samples indicate that despite the catastrophic health impact of COVID on the Latino population of the region, there was not a mass exodus of Latinos from the City or the metro area. The 2021 ACS One-Year samples, when compared with previous ACS One-Year samples, indicate that the City’s overall population increased by 0.5% between 2018 and 2021 and 1.3% between 2019 and 2021. The ‘Hispanic’ population, excluding Spaniards, rose by 0.2% between 2018 and 2021 and 1.4% between 2019 and 2021 according to these data.

Employing Respondent Driven Sampling (Rds) To Recruit People Who Inject Drugs (Pwid) And Other Hard-To-Reach Populations During Covid-19: Lessons Learned, Roberto Abadie, Patrick Habecker, Kimberly Gocchi Carrasco, Kathy S. Chiou, Samodha C. Fernando, Sydney Townsend, Aníbal Valentin-Acevedo, Kirk Dombrowski, John T. West, Charles Wood

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Background: Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS) is an effective sampling strategy to recruit hard-to-reach populations but the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of this strategy in the collection of data involving human subjects, particularly among marginalized and vulnerable populations, is not known. Based on an ongoing study using RDS to recruit and study the interactions between HIV infection, injection drug use, and the microbiome in Puerto Rico, this paper explores the e􀀀ectiveness of RDS during the pandemic and provided potential strategies that could improve recruitment and data collection.

Results: RDS was employed to evaluate its effectiveness …

Spatial And Age Disparities In Covid-19 Outcomes, Qian Huang

Theses and Dissertations

COVID-19 has caused significant social, economic, environmental, and political impacts globally and affected communities unequally in the U.S. The pandemic has also sparked interest in age-specific manifestations of infection, for example, studies confirmed the risk of increasing age with COVID-19 severity. However, the nonstationarity effects of health determinants among age groups have not been well examined. This study aims to explore the nonstationarity effects of social, behavioral, environmental, health care access, and political contexts on COVID-19 outcomes. This study poses three broad questions: 1) how did COVID-19 vaccinations align with COVID-19 daily cases and deaths in the United States; 2) …

Understanding Changes To Human Mobility Patterns In Ontario, Canada During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ben Klar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Transportation research has shown that socio-demographic factors affect people’s mobility patterns. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some of these effects have changed in accordance with changing mobility needs adapting to the pandemic, including restrictions on in-person gatherings, closure of in-person businesses and working from home. We investigate two gaps in current knowledge in this area of transportation research: to what extent the association between socio-demographic factors and mobility metrics have changed, and how these associations vary across geographic space. We also investigate how closely Ontario’s Public Health Unit boundaries, based on which pandemic restrictions were applied, reflect actual travel regions, and …

Wastewater-Informed Public Health Intervention Playbook

Sustain Magazine

As the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic quickly spread from country to country and continent to continent in 2020, governments and scientists needed a way to track COVID-19 through populations in order to position public health interventions in the most impactful locations. Having a decision-based risk framework may help to guide policy creation that could minimize or prevent possible outbreaks and surges of infection within communities. The University of Louisville in partnership with Louisville’s Department of Public Health and Wellness tested this strategy in 2021 and 2022. This Wastewater-Informed Public Health Intervention Playbook describes the decisions and actions of that academic and public …

Digital Geographies Of Indigenous Health: Exploring Indigenous Mental Health Content From Turtle Island During Covid-19, Veronica Reitmeier

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The physical and mental health and wellness of Indigenous peoples is cultivated through interrelations with spiritual, cultural, community, and social practices: these practices strengthen identity and belonging. COVID-19 has disrupted many of these relational practices or shifted them to digital environments such as social media. Drawing on a thematic analysis of Tweets from March 2020-December 2021 (n=1137), I address the research question: How are Twitter users across Turtle Island engaging with Indigenous mental health content on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic? Within an Indigenous context, no exploratory research has been conducted on who is engaging with mental health content on …

Governing Diseases And Disasters: Illiberal And Speculative State Governance In Post-Authoritarian South Korea, So Hyung Lim

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation asks how we should understand a post-authoritarian state’s actions in the case of three crises in which many died: the MERS outbreak of 2015, the Sewol Ferry Disaster of 2014, and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2019 to the present. The first two of these involved gross mismanagement as well as cover-ups and violence against people questioning the state’s actions and narrative. The third was more competently handled, yet there are connections among the patterns of governance in all three cases that raise questions about the South Korean state and how certain kinds of state violence and narratives are …

Mapping The Covid-19 Pandemic In Staten Island, Vincenzo Mezzio

Student Theses

COVID-19 has had diverging effects in New York City. Out of the five boroughs, Staten Island has one of the largest percentages of COVID-19 cases relative to population. This research examines key social and spatial factors that contribute to the increase in COVID-19 cases in Staten Island). It asks: Which parts of Staten Island have higher rates of transmission of COVID-19? Which parts of the borough have higher population who are more vulnerable to COVID-19? What is the relationship between the location of vaccination centers with the rates of COVID-19 cases? Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), this research examines the …

Exploring The Spatial Distribution Of Air Pollutants And Covid-19 Death Rate: A Case Study For Los Angeles County, California, Akhil Mandalapu, Junfeng Jiao, Amin Azimian

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

Objective

Since March 2020, COVID-19 has rapidly spread across the world with over 240 million cases and over 5 million deaths as of November 2021. It has been unclear what role air pollutants may play in exacerbating respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19 due to their interaction with the respiratory system. The association with air pollutants and COVID-19 severity has been explored at the regional and metropolitan area, however it is unclear if such an association is consistent at the neighborhood level.

Methods

Weekly death rates from COVID-19 from March 2020 to November 2021 were compared using one-sided unpaired t-tests across …

Nevada Economic Development And Public Policy 2022-2026: A Sustainable Future For All Nevadans, The Lincy Institute, Brookings Mountain West

Policy Briefs and Reports

This report evaluates economic development efforts in the State of Nevada since the 2011 publication of Unify, Regionalize, Diversify: An Economic Development Agenda for Nevada; assesses demographic and economic trends for Nevada and its regions; examines how state and federal actions since the onset of COVID-19 can position Nevada and its regions to address long-standing economic, educational, and social deficits; and offers policy recommendations to be implemented in the next four years to facilitate a sustainable future for all Nevadans.

Covid-19 And Outdoor Recreation In Maine And New Hampshire: Analysis Of Trends Using Passive Visitation Data, Andrea Knapp

Honors College

The COVID-19 pandemic has motivated alterations to the way people approach and practice outdoor recreation. Access to outdoor areas has changed rapidly in response to measures like travel bans, closures, and health and safety guidelines. Recreation managers have had to act quickly to keep up with these visitor use fluctuations in order to protect resources from use degradation. I explored how pandemic effects have changed visitation behaviors and trends in outdoor recreation in Acadia National Park and the White Mountain National Forest. Acadia National Park is a well-known and highly trafficked outdoor recreation area with over 3 million visits annually …

The Value Of Education: School Policy Decisions During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Elika W. Somani

Individually Designed Interdepartmental Major Honors Project

During the COVID-19 pandemic, lacking national U.S. policies, wide variation and conflict over chosen public school policy decisions emerged. What factors and guidelines informed the decision-making process in K-12 public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and who were the key stakeholders? This study examines three school district types – a large city, medium city, and small-town – across Minnesota as case studies to unpack how policy decisions were made during the pandemic. Stakeholder interviews uncovered that the school decision-making process was a) connected to a district's political opinions, b) made by the superintendent and school board, c) primarily influenced by …

Life In The Time Of Covid-19: The Everyday Impacts Of The Pandemic In Amman, Jordan, Patrick Mckenzie

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic and the responses taken to combat it caused enormous changes to the everyday lives of people around the world. Jordan, in its early success against the virus and with its large refugee population, represents a unique country in which to study these everyday impacts. From May to August of 2021, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the Jordanian capital city of Amman while working with the refugee nongovernmental organization the Collateral Repair Project. In this thesis, I explore the COVID-19 Spectacle, examining the ways in which policies and discourses at the national and international scales bled into the …

Extreme Development Of Dragon Fruit Agriculture With Nighttime Lighting In Southern Vietnam, Shenyue Jia, Son V. Nghiem, Seung-Hee Kim, Laura Krauser, Andrea E. Gaughan, Forest R. Stevens, Menas Kafatos, Khanh D. Ngo

Institute for ECHO Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Dragon fruit is widely grown in Southeast Asia and other tropical or subtropical regions. As a high-value cash crop ideal for exportation, dragon fruit cultivation has boomed during the past decade in southern Vietnam. Light supplementing during the winter months using artificial lighting sources is a widely adopted cultivation technique to boost productivity in the major dragon fruit planting regions of Vietnam. The application of electric lighting at night leads to a significant increase of nighttime light (NTL) observable by satellite sensors. The strong seasonality signal of NTL in dragon fruit cultivation enables identifying dragon fruit plantations using NTL images. …

The Effect Of Covid-19 On Independent African Churches (Iacs) In Johannesburg, South Africa, Constance Nyika, Milena Ivanovic, Kevin A. Griffin

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This paper explores the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the religious tourism activities of the four most prominent Independent Apostolic Churches (IAC) operating in Johannesburg, South Africa. This is an interpretive qualitative research study based on data from 15 telephone-based semi-structured interviews with congregants and church leaders of the Zion Christian Church, Zimbabwe (ZCC Mutendi), The Apostolic Church of Johane Marange, The Apostolic Church of Johane Masowe and Apostolic Faith Church, Mugodhi. Thematic content analysis was used for data analysis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the religious tourism activities of all four IACs in the study as they …

The Times, They Are A-Changin’: Tracking Shifts In Mental Health Signals From Early Phase To Later Phase Of The Covid-19 Pandemic In Australia, Siqin Wang, Xiao Huang, Tao Hu, Mengxi Zhang, Zhenlong Li, Huan Ning, Jonathan Corcoran, Asaduzzaman Khan, Yan Liu, Jiajia Zhang Ph.D., Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Introduction Widespread problems of psychological distress have been observed in many countries following the outbreak of COVID-19, including Australia. What is lacking from current scholarship is a national-scale assessment that tracks the shifts in mental health during the pandemic timeline and across geographic contexts.

Methods Drawing on 244 406 geotagged tweets in Australia from 1 January 2020 to 31 May 2021, we employed machine learning and spatial mapping techniques to classify, measure and map changes in the Australian public’s mental health signals, and track their change across the different phases of the pandemic in eight Australian capital cities.

Results Australians’ …

Parents’ Attitudes Regarding Their Children’S Play And Sport During Covid-19, Monika B. Szpunar, Leigh M. Vanderloo, Brianne A. Bruijns, Stephanie Truelove, Shauna M. Burke, Jason Gilliland, Jennifer D. Irwin, Patricia Tucker

Geography & Environment Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health measures have interrupted the daily routines of parents and children. The purpose of this study was to explore parents’ attitudes regarding their children’s play/sport during COVID-19. A secondary objective was to explore the influence of parent demographics and parent-reported physical activity levels and risk tolerance on these attitudes. Ontario parents of children aged 12 and younger completed an online survey (August—December 2020) that assessed their attitudes (grouped by support, safety and socialization-related attitudes; n = 14 items) regarding their child(ren)’s play/sport, their physical activity levels (n = 2 items), and demographic details …

A Lost Generation: Perpetual Education Insecurity Among The Rohingya, Robin E. Al-Haddad, Kendra L. Duran, Saleh Ahmed

Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Education security exists when every child has equal access to quality education. Rohingya refugee children suffer widespread rates of education insecurity both in their home country, Myanmar and in their host country, Bangladesh. While the right to education is recognized in several human rights instruments, access to education is not ubiquitous, making the ability to achieve this right challenging for many Rohingya. Government restrictions on accredited education, COVID-19 related school closures, failures in launching a pilot of the Myanmar curriculum, and recent government plans to relocate refugees to Bhasan Char Island have created a ‘lost generation’ of Rohingya youth. This …

Community Responses To Food Insecurity During Covid-19: A Case Study In Sheffield, England, Nicole Kennard

Urban Food Systems Symposium

The COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to a group of newly food insecure people and deepened hardship for those already food insecure. The crisis disrupted national food supplies and created challenges to accessing and utilizing the food that was available. As financial struggle deepened for people, and some became unable to shop for food or cook due to isolation requirements and illness, many turned to community organizations to obtain food. In Sheffield, England, small community food organizations soon became the leaders of the city’s emergency food response. One such organization is the Foodhall Project, a community food organization which had previously …