The HESAL lab has several ongoing projects related to the historical health of populations, with particular emphasis on children and youth. All of these projects have utilized the Copper Country Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure.
Stone, T., Trepal, D., Lafreniere, D., and Sadler, R. 2023. Built and Social Indicators for Hazards in Children's Environments. Health and Place, Vol. 83. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103074
View Paper Here
Abstract:
Leveraging the capabilities of the Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure (HSDI) and composite indices we explore the importance of children's built and social environments on health. We apply contemporary GIS methods to a set of 2000 historical school records contextualized within an existing HSDI to establish seven variables measuring the relative quality of each child's built and social environments. We then combined these variables to create a composite index that assesses acute (short-term) health risks generated by their environments. Our results show that higher acute index values significantly correlated with higher presence of disease in the home. Further, higher income significantly correlated with lower acute index values, indicating that the relative quality of children's environments in our study area were constrained by familial wealth. This work demonstrates the importance of analyzing multiple activity spaces when assessing built and social environments, as well as the importance of spatial microdata.
Stone, T., Lafreniere, D., and Hildebrandt, R. 2022. Deep Mapping the Daily Spaces of Children and Youth in the Industrial City. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 55, no. 4: 209-227.
View Paper Here
Abstract:
Employing a deep mapping approach we aim to increase our understanding of the social, spatial, and temporal relationships children shared with the industrial city as it grew and evolved. In this paper, we spatialize and record-link numerous local and national datasets on environments and children including the complete count IPUMS historical census data to study the lives of schoolchildren in a twentieth century copper mining town in northern Michigan. Leaning on Hägerstrand’s time geography theory we place 2025 children within their built and social environments tracing their commutes to school, the school day, and their time at home. We demonstrate the utility of this approach through an analysis of students’ proximity to hazardous environments throughout the day.
Lafreniere, D., Stone, T., Hildebrandt, R., Sadler, R., Madison, M., Trepal, D., Spikberg, G., and Juip, J. 2021. Schools as Vectors of Infectious Disease Transmission during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization. Vol. 56, no. 1: 51-63.
View Paper Here
Abstract:
In this paper we utilize a combination of national microdata from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) with local population and health microdata, spatialized to the household level, and employ an historical GIS (HGIS) to follow infectious disease transmission between public school children in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Microdata are data at the finest, non-aggregated level of precision. We illustrate three important advantages of using historical microdata within an HGIS framework: contextualization of data within their period-accurate space—time, avoidance of the ecological fallacy, and the ability to move freely between micro and macro scales. We demonstrate the potential for studying historic pandemics using historical microdata by doing a spatiotemporal analysis following infectious respiratory disease through three schools from April to June 1918.
Sadler, R., and Lafreniere, D. 2017. You are where you live: Methodological Challenges to Measuring Children’s Exposure to Hazards. Journal of Children and Poverty, Vol. 23, no. 2: 189-198.
View Paper Here
Abstract:
Many of the challenges that affect children living in poverty are directly related to the neighborhoods in which they live. Places that inhibit healthy living and those that expose children to environmental pollution tend to more heavily affect children in poverty. This environmental injustice is a natural concern of the fields of urban planning, geography, and children’s health. Yet many decisions that affect opportunities for healthy living are made without a full understanding of how neighborhood context influences such opportunities. In this brief, we paint inequalities in child health outcomes as a spatial problem, review some of the geospatial tools used by urban planners and geographers, discuss common reasons for misclassification or misrepresentation of spatially explicit problems, and propose more suitable methods for measuring opportunities and exposures germane to the field of child poverty. Throughout, we emphasize the need for evidence-driven, spatially grounded responses to child poverty issues with a spatial dimension
Stone, T., Trepal, D., Lafreniere, D., and Sadler, R. 2023. Built and Social Indicators for Hazards in Children's Environments. Health and Place, Vol. 83. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103074
View Paper Here
Abstract:
Leveraging the capabilities of the Historical Spatial Data Infrastructure (HSDI) and composite indices we explore the importance of children's built and social environments on health. We apply contemporary GIS methods to a set of 2000 historical school records contextualized within an existing HSDI to establish seven variables measuring the relative quality of each child's built and social environments. We then combined these variables to create a composite index that assesses acute (short-term) health risks generated by their environments. Our results show that higher acute index values significantly correlated with higher presence of disease in the home. Further, higher income significantly correlated with lower acute index values, indicating that the relative quality of children's environments in our study area were constrained by familial wealth. This work demonstrates the importance of analyzing multiple activity spaces when assessing built and social environments, as well as the importance of spatial microdata.
Stone, T., Lafreniere, D., and Hildebrandt, R. 2022. Deep Mapping the Daily Spaces of Children and Youth in the Industrial City. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 55, no. 4: 209-227.
View Paper Here
Abstract:
Employing a deep mapping approach we aim to increase our understanding of the social, spatial, and temporal relationships children shared with the industrial city as it grew and evolved. In this paper, we spatialize and record-link numerous local and national datasets on environments and children including the complete count IPUMS historical census data to study the lives of schoolchildren in a twentieth century copper mining town in northern Michigan. Leaning on Hägerstrand’s time geography theory we place 2025 children within their built and social environments tracing their commutes to school, the school day, and their time at home. We demonstrate the utility of this approach through an analysis of students’ proximity to hazardous environments throughout the day.
Lafreniere, D., Stone, T., Hildebrandt, R., Sadler, R., Madison, M., Trepal, D., Spikberg, G., and Juip, J. 2021. Schools as Vectors of Infectious Disease Transmission during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization. Vol. 56, no. 1: 51-63.
View Paper Here
Abstract:
In this paper we utilize a combination of national microdata from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) with local population and health microdata, spatialized to the household level, and employ an historical GIS (HGIS) to follow infectious disease transmission between public school children in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Microdata are data at the finest, non-aggregated level of precision. We illustrate three important advantages of using historical microdata within an HGIS framework: contextualization of data within their period-accurate space—time, avoidance of the ecological fallacy, and the ability to move freely between micro and macro scales. We demonstrate the potential for studying historic pandemics using historical microdata by doing a spatiotemporal analysis following infectious respiratory disease through three schools from April to June 1918.
Sadler, R., and Lafreniere, D. 2017. You are where you live: Methodological Challenges to Measuring Children’s Exposure to Hazards. Journal of Children and Poverty, Vol. 23, no. 2: 189-198.
View Paper Here
Abstract:
Many of the challenges that affect children living in poverty are directly related to the neighborhoods in which they live. Places that inhibit healthy living and those that expose children to environmental pollution tend to more heavily affect children in poverty. This environmental injustice is a natural concern of the fields of urban planning, geography, and children’s health. Yet many decisions that affect opportunities for healthy living are made without a full understanding of how neighborhood context influences such opportunities. In this brief, we paint inequalities in child health outcomes as a spatial problem, review some of the geospatial tools used by urban planners and geographers, discuss common reasons for misclassification or misrepresentation of spatially explicit problems, and propose more suitable methods for measuring opportunities and exposures germane to the field of child poverty. Throughout, we emphasize the need for evidence-driven, spatially grounded responses to child poverty issues with a spatial dimension
