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Associations of Household Income with Health-Related Quality of Life Following a Colorectal Cancer Diagnosis Varies with Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status

Robinson, Jamaica R. M.; Phipps, Amanda, I; Barrington, Wendy E.; Hurvitz, Philip M.; Sheppard, Lianne; Malen, Rachel C.; Newcomb, Polly A. (2021). Associations of Household Income with Health-Related Quality of Life Following a Colorectal Cancer Diagnosis Varies with Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, 30(7), 1366 – 1374.

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Abstract

Background: Existing evidence indicates household income as a predictor of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) following a colorectal cancer diagnosis. This association likely varies with neighborhood socioeconomic status (nSES), but evidence is limited. Methods: We included data from 1,355 colorectal cancer survivors participating in the population-based Puget Sound Colorectal Cancer Cohort (PSCCC). Survivors reported current annual household income; we measured HRQoL via the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - Colorectal (FACT-C) tool. Using neighborhood data summarized within a 1-km radial buffer of Census block group centroids, we constructed a multidimensional nSES index measure. We employed survivors' geocoded residential addresses to append nSES score for Census block group of residence. With linear generalized estimating equations clustered on survivor location, we evaluated associations of household income with differences in FACT-C mean score, overall and stratified by nSES. We used separate models to explore relationships for wellbeing subscales. Results: We found lower household income to be associated with clinically meaningful differences in overall FACT-C scores [<$30K: -13.6; 95% confidence interval (CI): -16.8 to -10.4] and subscale wellbeing after a recent colorectal cancer diagnosis. Relationships were slightly greater in magnitude for survivors living in lower SES neighborhoods. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that recently diagnosed lower income colorectal cancer survivors are likely to report lower HRQoL, and modestly more so in lower SES neighborhoods. Impact: The findings from this work will aid future investigators' ability to further consider the contexts in which the income of survivors can be leveraged as a means of improving HRQoL

Keywords

Built Environment Factors; Functional Assessment; Fact-c; Population-density; Physical-activity; Survivors; Care; Disparities; Impact; Mortality

A Set Pair Analysis Model for Suitability Evaluation of Human Settlement Environment

Xiang, Wei-qi; Yang, Xiao-hua; Li, Yu-qi. (2021). A Set Pair Analysis Model for Suitability Evaluation of Human Settlement Environment. Thermal Science, 25(3B), 2109 – 2116.

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Abstract

The human settlement environment is a dynamic subsystem where people live and produce in the social system. This paper aims at evaluating comprehensively the suitability state of a given human settlement environment in a certain time and space and its evolutionary trend, the set pair analysis theory and its connection numbers are introduced into the suitability evaluation, and the set of human settlements is established. The set pair analysis model based on partial connection number is used to assess the suitability status and the development trend of human settlements in Guizhou Province from 2014 to 2017. The result shows that the set pair analysis model has the features of convenience, impersonality and good feasibility.

Keywords

Human Ecology; Human Settlements; Number Theory; Social Systems; Guizhou Sheng (china); Human Settlement Environment; Partial Connection Number; Set Pair Analysis; Suitability Evaluation

College of Built Environments’ unique Inspire Fund aims to foster research momentum in underfunded pursuits college-wide. And it’s working.

Launching the Inspire Fund: An early step for CBE’s Office of Research “For a small college, CBE has a broad range of research paradigms, from history and arts, to social science and engineering.” — Carrie Sturts Dossick, Associate Dean of Research Upon taking on the role of Associate Dean of Research, Carrie Sturts Dossick, professor in the Department of Construction Management, undertook listening sessions to learn about the research needs of faculty, staff and students across the College of Built…

Jeff Hou and co-editors publish book on emerging civic urbanisms in Asia

In Emerging Civic Urbanisms in Asia: Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, and Taipei beyond Developmental Urbanization, Jeff Hou, Professor of Landscape Architecture, and co-editors Im Sik Cho and Blaz Kriznik, explore the ways that citizens are increasingly involved in shaping their neighbourhoods and cities, representing a significant departure from earlier state-led or market-driven urban development. These emerging civic urbanisms are a result of an evolving relationship between the state and civil society. The contributions in this volume provide critical insights into how…

Andy Dannenberg and co-editors publish an updated & expanded book on making healthy places

In Making Healthy Places, Second Edition: Designing and Building for Well-Being, Equity, and Sustainability, planning and public health experts, Andy L. Dannenberg, Affiliate Professor of Urban Design & Planning, along with co-authors Nisha D. Botchwey and Howard Frumkin bring together scholars and practitioners from across the globe in fields ranging from public health, planning, and urban design, to sustainability, social work, and public policy. This updated and expanded edition explains how to design and build places that are beneficial to the…

Ann Marie Borys publishes book on American Unitarian churches

Ann Marie Borys, Associate Professor in Architecture recently published a book titled American Unitarian Churches: Architecture of a Democratic Religion. The Unitarian religious tradition was a product of the same eighteenth-century democratic ideals that fueled the American Revolution and informed the founding of the United States. Its liberal humanistic principles influenced institutions such as Harvard University and philosophical movements like Transcendentalism. Yet, its role in the history of American architecture is little known and studied. In American Unitarian Churches, Ann Marie…

Ken Tadashi Oshima named a Society of Architectural Historians Fellow

Ken Tadashi Oshima is Professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he teaches trans-national architectural history, theory and design. He has also been a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and UCLA, and has taught at Columbia University and the University of British Columbia. He earned an AB degree, magna cum laude, in East Asian studies and visual and environmental studies from Harvard College, an MArch degree from University of California,…

Amy Thorton

My research area is art and design for public health.

Through built investigations, illustration, photography, video, movement practices, narrative, the full-sensory experience of rural farming, community gatherings, and back country explorations, I explore the root cause for accelerating anthropogenic environmental destruction and human chronic disease: disconnection, divide, and lack of care.

I believe in order to address this challenge for human and planetary health and human to human reconnection, we must radically alter our methods of learning and communicating. I call on designers, artists, scientists, and the academy to eschew sensory-limiting, isolating, disembodied, sedentary, screen-based, occularcentric practices and employ full-sensory, embodied, and experiential modes of understanding, communication, and synthesizing. I believe that research and the communication of that research must also be experiential, full sensory, and embodied in order to grapple with the complex challenges with which we are faced. My work, therefore, explodes the confines of text and the occularcentric to include a multi-sensory, place-and-body based approach.

I am interested in empirical (or field study) design research and analysis. Implementing design and art installations which aim to inspire reconnections, I subsequently observe, document, collect informal, qualitative, and multi-sensory “data”, and communicate the outcomes through full-sensory experiential production which strives to provoke and engage the experiencer’s senses. Supporting this work, I deploy theoretical research based on intersectional feminism, indigenous knowledges, knowledge held by multi-species beings, and a canon (bibliography) of female and intersectional theorists.

My hope is to inspire and encourage reconnections to body, to natural environment, and to each other. My work is situated in the rural environment including its human and other-than-human community which has been largely neglected by academia and contemporary art. I enjoy trashing the anthropocentric concept of trans-urbanism and replacing it with trans-wilderness or trans-ruralism. Gastrointestinal microbes are from where?

Holly Taylor

My research focuses on historic preservation theory and practice, particularly related to vernacular buildings and cultural landscapes. Specifically, I am interested in understanding how the intellectual framework that underlies public policy can better support the preservation of community gathering places and other historic sites that are significant for their contemporary cultural uses, social values, and roles in traditional economies. For more information about my research, please see “Recognizing the Contemporary Cultural Significance of Historic Places: A Proposal to Amend National Register Criteria to Include Social Value” on the US/ICOMOS site. In addition to pursuing doctoral research, I am the owner and principal of Past Forward Northwest Cultural Services, a consulting business specializing in historic preservation research and heritage education projects.

Salman Rashdi

My general research interests focus on architectural production in post-colonial societies. I started my research in my Masters with a study of architecture in Pakistan after independence and how simultaneous tensions and fusions between ideals of nationalism and religion have influenced the production of architecture in the country. Through this study I am also focusing on expressions of national identity through architectural form and space and the role that a 20th century expression of Islamic architecture has played in the formation of a post-colonial nation state. In my PhD I hope to expand this inquiry to the larger South-Asian region and/or the Post-colonial Muslim world.