I’m happy to announce that my proposal, “Identifying disparities in pediatric asthma outcomes based on spatiotemporal access to relevant health services”, submitted to the CCTST PCOR funding announcement was funded.
My co-Is (all from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center) and I are very excited about the possibility of furthering our understanding of triggers of asthma that go beyond pollutants in the environment.
Work will begin November 1st, and I’ll post updates as they come.
A manuscript I am a collaborator on was just accepted for publication at the American Society 
of Civil Engineer’s journal: Natural Hazards Review.
The paper, titled “Impacts of disrupted road networks in siting relief facility locations: A case study for Leon County, FL” was lead by PhD student Holly Nowell and coauthored by Dr. Mark Horner and myself.
I’ll post more when the online first version becomes available!
Well the marathon didn’t go as I’d hoped, thanks to some severe cramps at mile 22. Ultimately, I finished with a time 3:25:17 … still less than my my super-secret tertiary goal of 3:30.
Despite the time, I still had a great day, and enjoyed running the course. Now, I’m looking forward to a few months of low mileage and having my weekends back!
At the finish line of the 2014 Columbus Marathon.
A younger Michael in 2007, running in the St. Louis Half Marathon.
Since 2004, I’ve run at least one half or full marathon a year – for a total of a few dozen half marathons with a 1:27:19 PR and four full marathons (Chicago, Tallahassee, Niagara Falls International, and Columbus) with a 3:20:31 PR. Hard to believe I’ve been doing this for 10 years now.
Tomorrow, I’ll race the Columbus Full again and try to hit a new personal record of ~3:15, with a “back up” goal of hitting <3:20. Columbus puts on a great race, with a nice flat course. I think I’ve always enjoyed these long races (as well as the training) because it gives me an opportunity to explore wherever I’m living – and forces me to get out and run in places I may be visiting.
Anyhow – I’m looking forward to this trip and race (see the map below).
2014 Columbus Marathon Map
A few updates:
This past year, my MA student Nate W has been working on a new bicycle map for the Cincinnati metro. He’s finally received the shipment of maps, and distributed them throughout the city. For more on the map and locations where you can pick up your own free bike map, check out his page here: http://cincymap.org/blog/bike-map-locations/
Next, my PhD student Daniel S has had a great run lately, having two papers accepted for presentation at the peer-reviewed Annual Meeting of the Transportation Review Board. More can be said about this work soon, but for now – Daniel is examining how urban residents’ movements can be used to understand a city’s form and function. I’ll be excited to discuss this more when the work is officially published.
Finally, I’ve had a few papers officially come out – the one I’m most excited about is titled “When are food deserts: integrating time into research on food accessibility.” Other work that has “officially” come out include a paper on how access to supermarkets via transit in Cincinnati can be quite variable – potentially leading to uncertainty, and a paper exploring twitter’s utility as a public health surveillance tool. We got some University of Cincinnati coverage on the latter piece here: http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=20535.
Beyond all of these developments, I am co-organizing the upcoming 2015 AAG’s International Geospatial Health Research Symposium, and am actively involved (chairing/organizing) in sessions titled “Mobility, Health and the City”, “Spatial Epidemiology”, and “Innovative Geospatial Applications for Food and Health Research.” Shoot me an email if you’re interested in any of these!