Concurrent assessment of urban environment and cardiometabolic risk over 10 years in a middle‐aged population‐based cohort

Inference regarding the impact of urban areas on health is limited by cross‐sectional studies assessing few dimensions and ignoring area‐level socio‐economic status. This study simultaneously assessed several dimensions of the built environment against incident cardiometabolic risk (CMR) arising over 10 years. It tested the hypothesis that, accounting for local area relative wealth, features of the built environment would not predict incident CMR. Initially, disease‐free adults in a biomedical cohort in Adelaide, Australia, provided address and clinical data over three waves of follow‐up. CMR was defined as the count of five clinical CMR factors. Built environment measures were derived for urban form, and natural, and food environments. Local area wealth was expressed using the relative location factor index. Poisson growth models accounting for within‐suburb clustering, age, sex, and education were used to estimate associations between built environment measures and increasing CMR. Fitted linear trajectories had statistically significant mean values of intercepts and slopes. CMR trajectories were associated with age, male sex, and low education. In models including measures of the food, natural, and urban form environments, per standard deviation increase, only POS count predicted incident CMR, which was more strongly predicted by relative location factor. Not accounting for local area socio‐economic status may overestimate the strength of relationships between health and the built environment. Inequity in accessible POS is robustly related to incident CMR.     

Getting yourself out of the way: Aboriginal people listening and belonging in the city

Much is known about the meaning of Country to Aboriginal people living in northern Australia. Discourse abounds in various disciplines about how Country provides people in remote locations with a sense of belonging and place. Yet little is known about what Country means to Aboriginal people living in large urban locations such as Sydney, Australia. The two authors conducted a series of interviews with nine Aboriginal people about what Country and belonging mean for them in the city. A methodological relation between the two authors is explored as a means of reflecting on the role of mentoring in a research partnership, and on the transferal of research capacity through that collaboration. Older participants identify how listening and belonging are each governed by the other to the extent that there can be no belonging without listening. We draw on the frames of both human geography and philosophy to argue that listening depends on an ability to get yourself out of the way.     

A multidisciplinary approach to reconstructing Late Glacial and Early Holocene landscapes

Understanding palaeotopographical variability forms the basis for understanding prehistoric societies. Alluvial and lacustrine environments, in particular, are key areas with both a high archaeological and palaeoecological potential. However, the often deep stratification of these sites, the high water table and the complex sedimentological variations can hamper a detailed reconstruction of the spatial relationship between prehistoric settlement and their environment. Combining different remote and proximal sensing techniques and coring data, can offer detailed insight into such landscapes. More specifically, the integration of mobile geophysical methods allows the collection of unprecedented continuous information on large-scale palaeolandscape variability. In this study we present a combined approach in order to map and model prehistoric landscapes and river systems in and around a Late Glacial palaeolake in north-western Belgium. Based on filtered and unfiltered digital elevation models, a survey area of 60 ha was selected, in which detailed mobile multi-receiver electromagnetic induction survey was conducted. The results allowed for the delineation of palaeochannels in the area and enabled modelling the depth of these features in the survey area, providing insight into their flow characteristics. ¹⁴C sampling enabled the dating of the evolving river system to the transition between the Late Glacial and the Early Holocene. Through additional coring, this river system could be traced further through the palaeolake area. Based on these results a detailed reconstruction was made of the palaeotopography that harboured the Final Palaeolithic and Early Mesolithic occupation of the study site.