Gina S Lovasi
Biographic Data
| ID | 181762 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gina S Lovasi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gina S |
| FAMILY NAME | Lovasi |
| SIGNATURE | LOVASI G S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Drexel University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2613-9599 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 56 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 217 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 56 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Neighborhood greenspace and brain imaging outcomes in older adults without dementia from three US Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers
Shared leadership team: The creation, journey, lessons learned
Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health (DSPH) upholds its founding belief that health is a human right. In pursuit of this commitment, DSPH has made addressing racism and discrimination a core public health priority through intentional diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) efforts for all. To challenge traditional hierarchical structures that have excluded the voices and decisions of many, the school established a Share…
Neighborhood factors and incident stroke: Reproducibility of associations across two nationwide cohorts
Research linking adverse neighborhood context with disparities in incident stroke may reflect publication bias for chance associations. We compared results from the REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS, n = 25,126, aged ≥45 years, 41 % Non-Hispanic Black, 12 % 50 years, 15 % Non-Hispanic Black, 20 % < high school degree, 2004-2022). We estimated Cox models predicting stroke for 44 census tract variables representing de…
Measuring Spatial Social Polarization in Public Health Research: A Scoping Review of Methods and Applications
Spatial social polarization (SSP) refers to the uneven spatial distribution and subsequent concentration of polarized social and/or economic groups in a specified geographic area. However, there is heterogeneity in how SSP is measured and operationalized in research. To this end, we conducted a scoping review to characterize the use of SSP measures in public health research, providing a foundation for those seeking to navigate this complex litera…
Gentrification and Fear of Displacement: A Quantitative Study of Older Black and White US Adults
Numerous studies have sought to clarify the relationship between gentrification, displacement, and health. However, few quantitative studies have investigated how gentrification may shape the fear of displacement among residents who remain in gentrifying neighborhoods - a hypothesized mechanism linking gentrification to downstream health inequities. Our study used data from a large national cohort of older Black and white US adults to examine the…
Built Environment Change over Time Using Google Street View Assessments of Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL) Cities
Neighborhood Bonding and Bridging Social Capital, Social Activity Participation, and Short-term Cognitive Variability in Later Life
Objectives Investigating social determinants of health and related outcomes may help identify effective and sustainable intervention targets. This study examined whether contextual-level social capital (bonding and bridging capital) and individual-level social participation were associated with short-term cognitive variability, an early indicator of normal and pathological cognitive aging. Methods The sample consisted of urban community-dwelling …
Association between spatial social polarisation and high blood pressure in older adults
BACKGROUND: Using data from the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) and the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study, we investigate the association between socioeconomic polarisation and blood pressure outcomes in black and white adults. We also validate previous findings that joint racial/ethnic and income measures of spatial social polarisation (SSP) outperform single domain measures. METHODS: We conducted a cross-…
Twenty-five-year changes in alcohol environment in US metropolitan areas: Examining patterns by area level sociodemographic characteristics
Using SaTScan to identify and map nightlife areas in Philadelphia, PA
Many cities have promoted nightlife or entertainment districts - concentrations of restaurants, bars, and other entertainment-related businesses - in order to revitalize declining neighborhoods. While entertainment districts can boost economic growth, they can also contribute to public health risks including violent crime, traffic accidents, and other harms. With data from the National Establishment Time Series (NETS) business database, we develo…
Association Between Household Deprivation and Living in Informal Settlements and Incidence of Diarrhea in Children Under 5 in Eleven Latin American Cities
Diarrhea is a leading cause of death in children globally, mostly due to inadequate sanitary conditions and overcrowding. Poor housing quality and lack of tenure security that characterize informal settlements are key underlying contributors to these risk factors for childhood diarrhea deaths. The objective of this study is to better understand the physical attributes of informal settlement households in Latin American cities that are associated …
Age and sex differences in the association between neighborhood socioeconomic environment and incident diabetes: Results from the diabetes location, environmental attributes and disparities (Lead) net…
The impact of NSEE on T2D risk may differ for males and females and by age group within different community types
National trends and disparities in retail food environments in the USA between 1990 and 2014
Objective: To describe national disparities in retail food environments by neighbourhood composition (race/ethnicity and socio-economic status) across time and space. Design: We examined built food environments (retail outlets) between 1990 and 2014 for census tracts in the contiguous USA ( n 71 547). We measured retail food environment as counts of all food stores, all unhealthy food sources (including fast food, convenience stores, bakeries and…
Neighborhood greenspace and cognition: The cardiovascular health study
Changes in the Retail Food Environment in Mexican Cities and Their Association with Blood Pressure Outcomes
Shifting food environments in Latin America have potentially contributed to an increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages, along with decreases in healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables. Yet, little is known about the impact that such changes in the food environment have on blood pressure in low- and middle-income countries, including Mexico. We utilized individual-level systolic and diastolic blood p…
Associations of Cumulative and Point-in-Time Neighborhood Poverty and Walkability with Body Mass from Age 30 to 39
Matching participant address with public records database in a US national longitudinal cohort study
Agreement between LexisNexis and REGARDS addresses varied by sociodemographic groups, potentially introducing bias in studies reliant on LexisNexis alone for residential address data
Higher Neighborhood Population Density Is Associated with Lower Potassium Intake in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL)
Current U.S. dietary guidelines recommend a daily potassium intake of 3400 mg/day for men and 2600 mg/day for women. Sub-optimal access to nutrient-rich foods may limit potassium intake and increase cardiometabolic risk. We examined the association of neighborhood characteristics related to food availability with potassium intake in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL). 13,835 participants completed a 24-h dietary recal…
Associations between Greenspace and Gentrification-Related Sociodemographic and Housing Cost Changes in Major Metropolitan Areas across the United States
Neighborhood greenspace may attract new residents and lead to sociodemographic or housing cost changes. We estimated relationships between greenspace and gentrification-related changes in the 43 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) of the United States (US). We used the US National Land Cover and Brown University Longitudinal Tracts databases, as well as spatial lag models, to estimate census tract-level associations between percentage g…
Association of neighborhood physical activity opportunities with incident cardiovascular disease in the Cardiovascular Health Study
Does a physical activity supportive environment ameliorate or exacerbate socioeconomic inequities in incident coronary heart disease
BACKGROUND: Efforts to reduce socioeconomic inequities in cardiovascular disease include interventions to change the built environment. We aimed to explore whether socioeconomic inequities in coronary heart disease (CHD) incidence are ameliorated or exacerbated in environments supportive of physical activity (PA). METHODS: We used data from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke study, which recruited US residents aged 45 or …
The Association of Neighborhood Medical Facilities with Aging in Place and Risk of Incident Myocardial Infarction
Objectives: Aging in place (residential stability) is a desirable means of aging where adults remain in their homes, even when facing challenges that impair their capacity for self-care. Residential stability, especially following acute health challenges, depends on individual and community factors, possibly including proximity to medical facilities. Methods: We explored the association between the density of medical facilities around homes with …
Assessing Google Street View Image Availability in Latin American Cities
Virtual audits using Google Street View are an increasingly popular method of assessing neighborhood environments for health and urban planning research. However, the validity of these studies may be threatened by issues of image availability, image age, and variance of image age, particularly in the Global South. This study identifies patterns of Street View image availability, image age, and image age variance across cities in Latin America and…
Building a Methodological Foundation for Impactful Urban Planetary Health Science
Business Data Categorization and Refinement for Application in Longitudinal Neighborhood Health Research: A Methodology
Neighborhood Characteristics and Disability in Older Adults
The urban environment may have a substantial impact on whether an older adult with a given level of functional impairment is able to age actively and remain independent
Reconsidering Access: Park Facilities and Neighborhood Disamenities in New York City
Is the Environment Near Home and School Associated with Physical Activity and Adiposity of Urban Preschool Children
Place-focused physical activity research, human agency, and social justice in public health: Taking agency seriously in studies of the built environment
Neighborhood Walkability and Active Travel (Walking and Cycling) in New York City
Children living in areas with more street trees have lower prevalence of asthma: Table 1
BACKGROUND: The prevalence of childhood asthma in the USA increased by 50% from 1980 to 2000, with especially high prevalence in poor urban communities. METHODS: Data on the prevalence of asthma among children aged 4-5 years and on hospitalisations for asthma among children less than 15 years old were available for 42 health service catchment areas within New York City. Street tree counts were provided by the New York City Department of Parks and…
Disparities in self-rated health across generations and through the life course
Effect of Individual or Neighborhood Disadvantage on the Association Between Neighborhood Walkability and Body Mass Index
Objectives. We sought to test whether the association between walkable environments and lower body mass index (BMI) was stronger within disadvantaged groups that may be particularly sensitive to environmental constraints. Methods. We measured height and weight in a diverse sample of 13 102 adults living throughout New York City from 2000–2002. Each participant's home address was geocoded and surrounded by a circular buffer with a 1-km radius. The…
Business Data Categorization and Refinement for Application in Longitudinal Neighborhood Health Research: A Methodology
Neighborhood Recreation Facilities and Facility Membership Are Jointly Associated with Objectively Measured Physical Activity
Assessing Google Street View Image Availability in Latin American Cities
Virtual audits using Google Street View are an increasingly popular method of assessing neighborhood environments for health and urban planning research. However, the validity of these studies may be threatened by issues of image availability, image age, and variance of image age, particularly in the Global South. This study identifies patterns of Street View image availability, image age, and image age variance across cities in Latin America and…
Development of a Neighborhood Walkability Index for Studying Neighborhood Physical Activity Contexts in Communities across the U.S. over the Past Three Decades
Evaluating options for measurement of neighborhood socioeconomic context: Evidence from a myocardial infarction case–control study
Using Universal Kriging to Improve Neighborhood Physical Disorder Measurement
Ordinary kriging, a spatial interpolation technique, is commonly used in social sciences to estimate neighborhood attributes such as physical disorder. Universal kriging, developed and used in physical sciences, extends ordinary kriging by supplementing the spatial model with additional covariates. We measured physical disorder on 1,826 sampled block faces across four U.S. cities (New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and San Jose) using Google Street…
Disparities in trajectories of changes in the unhealthy food environment in New York City: A latent class growth analysis, 1990-2010
More neighborhood retail associated with lower obesity among New York City public high school students
Use of Google Street View to Assess Environmental Contributions to Pedestrian Injury
Objectives. To demonstrate an information technology–based approach to assess characteristics of streets and intersections associated with injuries that is less costly and time-consuming than location-based studies of pedestrian injury. Methods. We used imagery captured by Google Street View from 2007 to 2011 to assess 9 characteristics of 532 intersections within New York City. We controlled for estimated pedestrian count and estimated the relat…
Neighbourhood food environments and body mass index among New York City adults
BACKGROUND: Studies evaluating the impact of the neighbourhood food environment on obesity have summarised the density or proximity of individual food outlets. Though informative, there is a need to consider the role of the entire food environment; however, few measures of whole system attributes have been developed. New variables measuring the food environment were derived and used to study the association with body mass index (BMI). METHODS: In…
A Local View of Informal Urban Environments: A Mobile Phone-Based Neighborhood Audit of Street-Level Factors in a Brazilian Informal Community
How Does Park Use and Physical Activity Differ between Childhood and Adolescence? A Focus on Gender and Race-Ethnicity
Are feelings of peace or depression the drivers of the relationship between neighbourhood social fragmentation and mental health in Aotearoa/New Zealand
Twenty-five-year changes in alcohol environment in US metropolitan areas: Examining patterns by area level sociodemographic characteristics
Perceptions and Uses of Public and Private Health Care in a Brazilian Favela
Since 1988, Brazil has reorganized and expanded its public health care system, defining access to health care as a right of every citizen. In parallel, the private health care sector grew rapidly to become one of the largest in the world. We explore the use of public and private health care by a low-income population living in a favela, Rio das Pedras, in Rio de Janeiro. At the time of data collection, only part of the community was covered by th…
Chlorpyrifos Exposure and Urban Residential Environment Characteristics as Determinants of Early Childhood Neurodevelopment
Objectives. We evaluated whether neighborhood characteristics correlated with early neurodevelopment and whether these characteristics confounded the previously reported association between exposure to chlorpyrifos (an organophosphate insecticide) and neurodevelopment. Methods. We obtained prenatal addresses, chlorpyrifos exposure data, and 36-month Psychomotor Development Index (PDI) and Mental Development Index (MDI) scores for a birth cohort i…
Built Environment Change over Time Using Google Street View Assessments of Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL) Cities
Evaluating options for measurement of neighborhood socioeconomic context: Evidence from a myocardial infarction case–control study
Children living in areas with more street trees have lower prevalence of asthma: Table 1
BACKGROUND: The prevalence of childhood asthma in the USA increased by 50% from 1980 to 2000, with especially high prevalence in poor urban communities. METHODS: Data on the prevalence of asthma among children aged 4-5 years and on hospitalisations for asthma among children less than 15 years old were available for 42 health service catchment areas within New York City. Street tree counts were provided by the New York City Department of Parks and…
Built Environments and Obesity in Disadvantaged Populations
In the United States, health disparities in obesity and obesity-related illnesses have been the subject of growing concern. To better understand how obesity-related health disparities might relate to obesogenic built environments, the authors conducted a systematic review of the published scientific literature, screening for studies with relevance to disadvantaged individuals or areas, identified by low socioeconomic status, black race, or Hispan…
Disparities in Urban Neighborhood Conditions: Evidence from GIS Measures and Field Observation in New York City
Neighborhood Food Environment and Walkability Predict Obesity in New York City
BACKGROUND: Differences in the neighborhood food environment may contribute to disparities in obesity. OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to examine the association of neighborhood food environments with body mass index (BMI) and obesity after control for neighborhood walkability. METHODS: This study employed a cross-sectional, multilevel analysis of BMI and obesity among 13,102 adult residents of New York City. We constructed measures of …
Neighborhood Characteristics and Disability in Older Adults
The urban environment may have a substantial impact on whether an older adult with a given level of functional impairment is able to age actively and remain independent
Effect of Individual or Neighborhood Disadvantage on the Association Between Neighborhood Walkability and Body Mass Index
Objectives. We sought to test whether the association between walkable environments and lower body mass index (BMI) was stronger within disadvantaged groups that may be particularly sensitive to environmental constraints. Methods. We measured height and weight in a diverse sample of 13 102 adults living throughout New York City from 2000–2002. Each participant's home address was geocoded and surrounded by a circular buffer with a 1-km radius. The…
Place-focused physical activity research, human agency, and social justice in public health: Taking agency seriously in studies of the built environment
Is the Environment Near Home and School Associated with Physical Activity and Adiposity of Urban Preschool Children
Reconsidering Access: Park Facilities and Neighborhood Disamenities in New York City
Chlorpyrifos Exposure and Urban Residential Environment Characteristics as Determinants of Early Childhood Neurodevelopment
Objectives. We evaluated whether neighborhood characteristics correlated with early neurodevelopment and whether these characteristics confounded the previously reported association between exposure to chlorpyrifos (an organophosphate insecticide) and neurodevelopment. Methods. We obtained prenatal addresses, chlorpyrifos exposure data, and 36-month Psychomotor Development Index (PDI) and Mental Development Index (MDI) scores for a birth cohort i…
Capturing context: Integrating spatial and social network analyses
Neighborhood Walkability and Active Travel (Walking and Cycling) in New York City
Socio-economic status, neighbourhood food environments and consumption of fruits and vegetables in New York City
Objective Recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption are largely unmet. Lower socio-economic status (SES), neighbourhood poverty and poor access to retail outlets selling healthy foods are thought to predict lower consumption. The objective of the present study was to assess the interrelationships between these risk factors as predictors of fruit and vegetable consumption. Design Cross-sectional multilevel analyses of data on fruit and v…
More neighborhood retail associated with lower obesity among New York City public high school students
Are feelings of peace or depression the drivers of the relationship between neighbourhood social fragmentation and mental health in Aotearoa/New Zealand
Neighbourhood food environments and body mass index among New York City adults
BACKGROUND: Studies evaluating the impact of the neighbourhood food environment on obesity have summarised the density or proximity of individual food outlets. Though informative, there is a need to consider the role of the entire food environment; however, few measures of whole system attributes have been developed. New variables measuring the food environment were derived and used to study the association with body mass index (BMI). METHODS: In…
Neighborhood physical disorder in New York City
Neighborhood physical disorder, or the deterioration of urban environments, is associated with negative mental and physical health outcomes. Eleven trained raters used CANVAS, a web-based system for conducting reliable virtual street audits, to collect data on nine indicators of physical disorder using Google Street View imagery of 532 block faces in New York City, New York, USA. We combined the block face indicator data into a disorder scale usi…
Quantifying Distance Overestimation From Global Positioning System in Urban Spaces
Objectives. To investigate accuracy of distance measures computed from Global Positioning System (GPS) points in New York City. Methods. We performed structured walks along urban streets carrying Globalsat DG-100 GPS Data Logger devices in highest and lowest quartiles of building height and tree canopy cover. We used ArcGIS version 10.1 to select walks and compute the straight-line distance (Geographic Information System–measured) and sum of dist…
Use of Google Street View to Assess Environmental Contributions to Pedestrian Injury
Objectives. To demonstrate an information technology–based approach to assess characteristics of streets and intersections associated with injuries that is less costly and time-consuming than location-based studies of pedestrian injury. Methods. We used imagery captured by Google Street View from 2007 to 2011 to assess 9 characteristics of 532 intersections within New York City. We controlled for estimated pedestrian count and estimated the relat…
Model-based and design-based inference goals frame how to account for neighborhood clustering in studies of health in overlapping context types
Accounting for non-independence in health research often warrants attention. Particularly, the availability of geographic information systems data has increased the ease with which studies can add measures of the local "neighborhood" even if participant recruitment was through other contexts, such as schools or clinics. We highlight a tension between two perspectives that is often present, but particularly salient when more than one type of poten…
Disparities in self-rated health across generations and through the life course
Neighborhood food environment, dietary fatty acid biomarkers, and cardiac arrest risk
Perceptions and Uses of Public and Private Health Care in a Brazilian Favela
Since 1988, Brazil has reorganized and expanded its public health care system, defining access to health care as a right of every citizen. In parallel, the private health care sector grew rapidly to become one of the largest in the world. We explore the use of public and private health care by a low-income population living in a favela, Rio das Pedras, in Rio de Janeiro. At the time of data collection, only part of the community was covered by th…
Use of Soparc to assess physical activity in parks: Do race/ethnicity, contextual conditions, and settings of the target area, affect reliability
SOPARC training should aim to improve reliability when assessing concurrent measures such as physical activity, race/ethnicity, age, and sex. Similarly, observing crowded park areas with many active users areas may require more observation practice hours
Medicine (37 works) · Geography (35 works) · Environmental health (32 works) · Urban Transport and Accessibility (32 works) · Demography (24 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (24 works) · Population (21 works) · Sociology (19 works) · Demography (18 works) · Urban Green Space and Health (17 works)