Health and Equity Data to Teach the Next Generation of Public Health Leaders.

The COVID-19 pandemic restructured university learning environments while also underscoring the need for granular local health data. We describe how the University of Memphis School of Public Health used the City Health Dashboard, an online resource providing data at the city and neighborhood level for more than 35 measures of health outcomes, health drivers, and health equity for all US cities with populations >50 000, to enrich students' learning of applying data to community health policy. By facilitating students' engagement with population needs, assets, and capacities that affect communities' health-key components of the master of public health accreditation process-the Dashboard supports in-person and virtual learning at undergraduate and graduate levels and is recommended as a novel and rigorous data source for public health trainees.

Health and Health Determinant Metrics for Cities: A Comparison of County and City-Level Data.

We evaluated whether using county-level data to characterize public health measures in cities biases the characterization of city populations. We compared 4 public health and sociodemographic measures in 447 US cities (percent of children living in poverty, percent of non-Hispanic Black population, age-adjusted cardiovascular disease mortality, life expectancy at birth) to the same measures calculated for counties that contain those cities. We found substantial and highly variable city-county differences within and across metrics, which suggests that use of county data to proxy city measures could hamper accurate allocation of public health resources and appreciation of the urgency of public health needs in specific locales.

Research ethics for mobile sensing device use by vulnerable populations.

Devices equipped with sensors to track mobility, such as through Global Position Systems (GPS) and accelerometery, are increasingly being used for research. Following Canadian, US, and International guidelines there is a need to give special consideration when conducting research with vulnerable populations. This paper examines specific ethical concerns for conducting research with mobile sensing devices for use by vulnerable populations, considering aspects of both research design and research process. Drawing on insights from feminist design and aligned fields, such as participatory design and action research, we contend that any research design and process for working with vulnerable populations must be developed in collaboration with the particular groups and communities who are part of the research. As part of this process of collaborative research, we discuss risks in terms of the lack of control over data associated with choosing commercial devices, as well as practicality and obtrusiveness of devices for the wearer. We also discuss the significance of informed consent and refusal and issues relating to security and safety during research. As part of the collaborative research design and process, we argue that participants should be given as much control over their data as possible. Based on this discussion, we provide recommendations for researchers to consider, which are broadly relevant for research using mobile sensing devices but particularly significant in relation to vulnerable populations.