#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. ...

#Mobility #Data Science #machine learning #latent

Identifying latent activity behaviors and lifestyles using mobility data to describe urban dynamics

Authors: Yanni Yang, Alex Pentland, Esteban Moro Publication: EPJ Data Science 12, Article number: 15 (2023) LINK Abstract: Urbanization and its problems require an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of urban dynamics, especially the complex and diversified lifestyles in modern cities. Digitally acquired data can accurately capture complex human activity, but it lacks the interpretability of demographic data. In this paper, we study a privacy-enhanced dataset of the mobility visitation patterns of 1. ...

#2023 #covid19 #Mobile phone data #Mobility #inequality

Behavioral changes during the COVID-19 pandemic decreased income diversity of urban encounters

Authors: Takahiro Yabe, Bernardo García Bulle Bueno, Xiaowen Dong, Alex Pentland & Esteban Moro Publication: Nature Communications volume 14, Article number: 2310 (2023) LINK Abstract: Diversity of physical encounters in urban environments is known to spur economic productivity while also fostering social capital. However, mobility restrictions during the pandemic have forced people to reduce urban encounters, raising questions about the social implications of behavioral changes. In this paper, we study how individual income diversity of urban encounters changed during the pandemic, using a large-scale, privacy-enhanced mobility dataset of more than one million anonymized mobile phone users in Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Seattle, across three years spanning before and during the pandemic. ...

#Segregation #Mobile phone data #Mobility

Mobility patterns are associated with experienced income segregation in large US cities

Authors: Esteban Moro, Dan Calacci, Xiaowen Dong & Alex Pentland. Publication: Nature Communications 12, 4633 (2021). Link Abstract: Traditional understanding of urban income segregation is largely based on static coarse grained residential patterns. However, these do not capture the income segregation experience implied by the rich social interactions that happen in places that may relate to individual choices, opportunities, and mobility behavior. Using a large-scale high-resolution mobility data set of 4. ...

#covid19 #Mobility #epidemics

Modeling the impact of social distancing, testing, contact tracing and household quarantine on second-wave scenarios of the COVID-19 epidemic

Authors: Alberto Aleta, David Martíın-Corral, Ana Pastore y Piontti, Marco Ajelli, Maria Litvinova, Matteo Chinazzi, Natalie E. Dean, M. Elizabeth Halloran, Ira M. Longini, Jr., Stefano Merler, Alex Pentland, Alessandro Vespignani, Esteban Moro & Yamir Moreno Publication: Nature Human Behavior(2020). Link Abstract: While severe social-distancing measures have proven effective in slowing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, second-wave scenarios are likely to emerge as restrictions are lifted. Here we integrate anonymized, geolocalized mobility data with census and demographic data to build a detailed agent-based model of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission in the Boston metropolitan area. ...