Category Archives: Tools

Maintaining patient privacy while geocoding patient addresses: Do Not Use R to Geocode

Posted on February 7, 2022 by Built Environment and Health

Imagine if a clinical researcher were to disclose a list of patient addresses to a third-party – government agency, for profit company or not-for-profit entity – that was outside of their hospital or health system. Imagine the researcher then publicly … Continue reading →

Posted in Health Care Access, Methods, Tools | Leave a comment

Improving the measurement of Neighborhood Physical Disorder

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Built Environment and Health

Neighborhood audit methods (AKA Systematic Social Observation) are often used to create measures of neighborhood built and social environments.  But even with the enhanced efficiency of virtual neighborhood audit methods using CANVAS-Street View, it is generally not possible to collect … Continue reading →

Posted in CANVAS, Methods, Street View, Tools | Leave a comment

Newly Funded Work on Pedestrian Injury

Posted on June 22, 2021 by Built Environment and Health

We have recently been funded by NIH to conduct a four-year study of how urban design, the locations of alcohol selling establishments, night life districts and locations of services for the homeless influence pedestrian fatality risk.  We will be conducting … Continue reading →

Posted in Active Transport, CANVAS, Economic Development, Methods, Pedestrian Injury, Safety, Street View, Tools, Urban Design, Walkability | Leave a comment

At Risk Populations for Severe COVID-19, Part IV

Posted on March 24, 2020 by Built Environment and Health

Our geographer extraordinaire, James Quinn, built a new version of our interactive mapping tool for severe COVID-19.  The map depicts populations at high risk of severe COVID-19 due to older age or underlying health conditions, the availability of ICU beds … Continue reading →

Posted in Health Care Access, Tools | 1 Comment

Commandments for Variable Naming and Data Management

Posted on August 3, 2016 by Built Environment and Health

As we launched another multifaceted geographic data linkage study our multi-institution team, that includes researchers at Drexel University, Columbia University and the University of Washington, has developed a set of commandments to streamline and harmonize our data management, variable naming … Continue reading →

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Maintaining Human Subject’s Protections in Neighborhood Health Effects Research

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Built Environment and Health

We recently published a commentary in the American Journal of Public Health describing the concerns we have for protecting study subject anonymity with the use of online geographic and data tools in neighborhood health effects research.  Examples of neighborhood data available … Continue reading →

Posted in Methods, Tools, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Python script to process and merge NYC MapPLUTO data

Posted on December 24, 2013 by Built Environment and Health

We are happy to share a python script that downloads and compiles all of the current and archived New York City (NYC) Department of City Planning’s (DCP) MapPluto versions into a single file geodatabase with feature datasets for each year-version. … Continue reading →

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