#Mobile phone data #Mobility #economy #Human behavior

Infrequent activities predict economic outcomes in major American cities

Authors: Shenhao Wang, Yunhan Zheng, Guang Wang, Takahiro Yabe, Esteban Moro & Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland Publication: Nature Cities 10.1038/s44284-024-00051-7. LINK Abstract: Many studies have revealed the predictive power of the most frequent, regular and habitual mobility patterns. However, it remains unclear which components of the mobility patterns contain the most informative signals for predicting disparate economic development across urban areas. Here we use machine learning to predict economic outcomes by analyzing the heterogeneous mobility networks of 687 activities from more than 560,000 anonymized users in Boston, Chicago and Miami. ...

#Mobility #Mobile phone data #Data Science #food #nutrition #accessibility #environments #Human behavior

Effect of mobile food environments on fast food visits

Authors: Bernardo Garcia-Bulle, Abigail L. Horn, Brooke M. Bell, Mohsen Bahrami, Burcin Bozkaya, Alex Pentland, Kayla de la Haye, and Esteban Moro Publication: Nature Communications 15, article number: 2291. LINK Abstract: Poor diets are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Exposure to low-quality food environments saturated with fast food outlets is hypothesized to negatively impact diet. However, food environment research has predominantly focused on static food environments around home neighborhoods and generated mixed findings. ...

#2024 #networks #labour markets #economy

Network constraints on worker mobility

Authors: Morgan R. Frank, Esteban Moro, Tobin South, Alex Rutherford, Alex Pentland, Bledi Taska & Iyad Rahwan Publication: Nature Cities, 1, pages 94–104 (2024) LINK Abstract: How do skills shape career mobility and access to cities’ labor markets? Here we model career pathways as an occupation network constructed from the similarity of occupations’ skill requirements within each US city. Using a nationally representative survey and three resume datasets, skill similarity predicts transition rates between occupations and predictions improve with increasingly granular skill data. ...

#2023 #covid19 #Mobile phone data #Mobility #economy #unemployment

The unequal effects of the health–economy trade-off during the COVID19 pandemic

Authors: Marco Pangallo, Alberto Aleta, R. Maria del Rio-Chanona, Anton Pichler, David Martin-Corral, Matteo Chinazzi, Francois Lafond, Marco Ajelli, Esteban Moro, Yamir Moreno, Alessandro Vespignani, J. Doyne Farmer Publication: Nature Human Behavior, Nov 16th, (2023) LINK Abstract: Despite the global impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the question of whether mandated interventions have similar economic and public health effects as spontaneous behavioural change remains unresolved. Addressing this question, and understanding differential effects across socioeconomic groups, requires building quantitative and fine-grained mechanistic models. ...

#2023 #Fast Food #Mobile phone data #Mobility #inequality

Population mobility data provides meaningful indicators of fast food intake and diet-related diseases in diverse populations

Authors: Abigail L. Horn, Brooke M. Bell, Bernardo Garcia Bulle Bueno, Mohsen Bahrami, Burcin Bozkaya, Yan Cui, John P. Wilson, Alex Pentland, Esteban Moro, Kayla de la Haye Publication: NPJ Digital Medicine 6, 208 (2023) LINK Abstract: The characteristics of food environments people are exposed to, such as the density of fast food (FF) outlets, can impact their diet and risk for diet-related chronic disease. Previous studies examining the relationship between food environments and nutritional health have produced mixed findings, potentially due to the predominant focus on static food environments around people’s homes. ...