Health Policy Commons^™

From Pandemic Response To Portable Population Health: A Formative Evaluation Of The Detroit Mobile Health Unit Program, Phillip Levy, Erin Mcglynn, Alex B. Hill, Liying Zhang, Steven J. Korzeniewski, Bethany Foster, Jasmine Criswell, Caitlin O'Brien, Katee Dawood, Lauren Baird, Charles J. Shanley

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

This article describes our experience developing a novel mobile health unit (MHU) program in the Detroit, Michigan, metropolitan area. Our main objectives were to improve healthcare accessibility, quality and equity in our community during the novel coronavirus pandemic. While initially focused on SARS-CoV-2 testing, our program quickly evolved to include preventive health services. The MHU program began as a location-based SARS-CoV-2 testing strategy coordinated with local and state public health agencies. Community needs motivated further program expansion to include additional preventive healthcare and social services. MHU deployment was targeted to disease “hotspots” based on publicly available SARS-CoV-2 testing data and …

Vaccine Hesitancy Within Nevada Counties, June 2021, Kelliann Beavers, Madison Frazee-Bench, William E. Brown Jr.

Health

This fact sheet highlights estimated rates of vaccine hesitancy, vaccination rates, the index of social vulnerability, and the level of concern for 17 Nevada counties as of June, 2021. The data are reported in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) estimates.

Pandemic Schooling: Lessons In Equity, Advocacy, And Racial Justice, Donna Rivera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It was my fourth year of teaching at a Brooklyn elementary school when the COVID-19 pandemic forced school buildings, and the entire city, to enter a world of lockdown and quarantine. New York City was an early epicenter of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, and the virus quickly revealed severe racial and socioeconomic disparities across the city. A disproportionate number of cases, serious illnesses, and death has been experienced by low-income Black and Latinx communities. At the same time, 2020 also ushered in a national racial reckoning following the May murder of George Floyd.

In this thesis, I will provide a …

Factors Associated With Voluntary Refusal Of Emergency Medical System Transport For Emergency Care In Detroit During The Early Phase Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Nicholas E. Harrison, Robert R. Ehrman, Andrea Curtin, Damon Gorelick, Alex B. Hill, Erin Brennan, Robert Dunne

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

Importance
Emergency department (ED) and emergency medical services (EMS) volumes decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the amount attributable to voluntary refusal vs effects of the pandemic and public health restrictions is unknown.

Objective
To examine the factors associated with EMS refusal in relation to COVID-19 cases, public health interventions, EMS responses, and prehospital deaths.

Design, Setting, and Participants
A retrospective cohort study was conducted in Detroit, Michigan, from March 1 to June 30, 2020. Emergency medical services responses geocoded to Census tracts were analyzed by individuals’ age, sex, date, and community resilience using the Centers for Disease Control and …

Food Insecurity In Detroit: Exploring The Relationship Between Patient-Reported Food Insecurity And Proximity To Healthful Grocery Stores, Sara Santarossa, Alex B. Hill, Alexandra R. Sitarik, Mackenzie Taylor, Susan Hawkins, Katherine Scher, Aaron Sohaski, Mohammed Baseer, Rachael Dombrowski, Alexander Plum, Christine Lm Joseph

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

Objective:
The objective of the current study was to determine if patients of a large health care system in Detroit who self-identify as food insecure live further away from healthy grocery stores compared with food secure patients. Second, we explored whether food insecurity and distance to healthy grocery stores are related to ecological measures of vehicle availability in the area of residence.

Design:
A secondary data analysis that uses baseline data from a pilot intervention/feasibility study.

Setting:
Detroit, Michigan, USA.

Participants:
Patients of Henry Ford Health System were screened for food insecurity to determine eligibility for a pilot intervention/feasibility study …

“Treat Everybody Right”: Examining Foodways To Improve Food Access, Alex B. Hill

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Research Publications

Detroit is regularly assumed to be a “food desert” despite contradicting evidence. With fruits and vegetables available at each of Detroit’s 70 independent, full-line grocery stores, there remains a lack of understanding among media and academics of residents’ perception and preferences for food access. A baseline study was initiated during the summer of 2014 to understand residents’ own perceptions of food access and to assess the socio-cultural foodways utilized by residents. A total of 207 Detroit residents participated in focus groups and interviews to discuss food provisioning. Residents identified a wide range of food access points, from home gardens and …

Police Shootings In The Mountain West, 2015 - 2021, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio, Madison Frazee-Bench, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Criminal Justice

The Washington Post publishes and regularly updates a dataset regarding the use of deadly force by police since 2015. This fact sheet extracts data for each state in the Mountain West (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah), and presents a regional perspective on the total number of individuals shot and killed by police, including demographic variables such as race, gender, and age. Two additional variables are included in this examination: the presence or absence of mental illness in the individual killed by police, and the presence or absence of a body-worn camera in incidents of deadly force by police.

Neither “Post-War” Nor Post-Pregnancy Paranoia: How America’S War On Drugs Continues To Perpetuate Disparate Incarceration Outcomes For Pregnant, Substance-Involved Offenders, Becca S. Zimmerman

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the unique interactions between pregnancy, substance involvement, and race as they relate to the War on Drugs and the hyper-incarceration of women. Using ordinary least square regression analyses and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, I examine if (and how) pregnancy status, drug use, race, and their interactions influence two length of incarceration outcomes: sentence length and amount of time spent in jail between arrest and imprisonment. The results collectively indicate that pregnancy decreases length of incarceration outcomes for those offenders who are not substance-involved but not evenhandedly -- benefitting white …

Pedestrians Under Attack, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

A review of Right Of Way by Angie Schmitt

Putting Policy In Its Place: Policy Enactment And Engagement Through A Multiscalar Policy-Shed Framework, Barbara L. Maclennan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The objective of this research is to examine the spatial components integral to policy formation, implementation, and evaluation. The research uses solid waste as a case study to explore a multiscalar GIS policy-shed framework. To this end, the goal of this dissertation is to examine the spatial nature of public policy. The research applies spatial concepts and multiscalar methodological applications embedded within GIS and geovisualization to explore the complex spaces surrounding public policy implementation and evaluation.