Hurricanes, as one of the most devastating natural disasters, significantly impact the public\'s health, causing both physical injuries and long-lasting mental health issues. Although substantial research has focused on hurricane-related injuries, this study aims to synthesize findings from recent literature, specifically evaluating the 10 most recent hurricanes, to identify research gaps and inform future studies. This scoping review, conducted in accordance with PRISMA-Scr guidelines, assessed studies from PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane databases, and Medline as of February 2024. Eligibility criteria focused on studies examining physical and mental health impacts, COVID-19 effects, and emergency medical services (EMS) interventions related to Hurricanes Ian, Nicholas, Ida, Zeta, Delta, Sally, Laura, Isaias, Hanna, and Dorian. Twenty articles met the inclusion criteria. The studies were categorized into four themes: physical injuries and fatalities, mental health impacts, hurricane-COVID-19 interplay, and EMS interventions. Findings revealed varied mechanisms of injuries and deaths, significant mental health challenges, compounded crises due to COVID-19, and diverse EMS strategies, including AI utilization and strategic planning for medical care delivery. Addressing the social determinants of health and evaluating hurricane readiness initiatives were two gaps in the literature identified. Future research should focus on the mental health impacts and concurrent crisis challenges to develop comprehensive disaster management practices that enhance community resilience against future hurricanes and public health crises.

The objective of this research was to understand key levers that enabled city, regional, and national governments to improve non-motorized transport (NMT) infrastructure during the lockdowns necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The research focused primarily on cycling and adopted a case study approach focusing on three cities: Bengaluru (India), Bogota (Colombia), and London (UK). The selected cities were chosen for diversity across geographies, country income levels, and the scale of interventions. Eight key levers were identified to understand how cycling interventions can be supported, implemented, sustained, and scaled up. These included institutional and organizational arrangements; technical capacity; financing; leadership; policy and regulatory framework; plans, strategies, and technical resources; role of civil society; and communications, messaging, and outreach. The research used secondary literature reviews and key informant interviews, which were validated through an online round table. Research revealed that certain levers were necessary in initiating and continuing successful NMT interventions. These included supportive leadership, participative civil society, and adequate financial and technical capacity. Communications and outreach helped bring behavioral change amongst residents while a coordinated institutional framework and plans and strategies were necessary to sustain momentum. This research contributes to urban mobility and public administration literature in understanding processes and enablers of sustainable mobility interventions. It is relevant for cities in low- and middle-income countries beginning to focus on NMT interventions to combat climate change and public health challenges.

People experiencing homelessness also experience poorer clinical outcomes of COVID-19. Various interventions were implemented for people experiencing homelessness in 2020-2022 in different countries in response to varied national guidance to limit the impact of COVID-19. It is important to understand what was done and the effectiveness of such interventions. This systematic review aims to describe interventions to mitigate the risks of COVID-19 in people experiencing homelessness and their effectiveness.
A protocol was developed and registered in PROSPERO. Nine databases were searched for studies on interventions to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on people experiencing homelessness. Included studies were summarised with narrative synthesis.
From 8,233 references retrieved from the database searches and handsearching, 15 were included. There was a variety of interventions, including early identification of potential COVID-19 infections, provision of isolation space, healthcare support, and urgent provision of housing regardless of COVID-19 infection.
The strategies identified were generally found to be effective, feasible, and transferable. This review must be interpreted with caution due to the low volume of eligible studies and the low quality of the evidence available.

Objective: The homeless population experiences inequality in health compared with the general population, which may have widened during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the impact of being homeless on the outcomes of COVID-19 is uncertain. This systematic review aimed to analyse the impact of experiencing homelessness on the clinical outcomes of COVID-19, including the effects on health inequalities. Methods: A review protocol was developed and registered in PROSPERO (PROSPERO registration 2022 CRD42022304941). Nine databases were searched in November 2022 to identify studies on homeless populations which contained primary research on the following outcomes of COVID-19: incidence, hospitalisation, mortality, long COVID, mental wellbeing, and evidence of inequalities. Included studies were summarised with narrative synthesis. Results: The searches yielded 8,233 initial hits; after screening, 41 studies were included. Overall, evidence showed that those in crowded living settings had a higher risk of COVID-19 infection compared to rough sleepers and the general population. The homeless population had higher rates of hospitalisation and mortality than the general population, lower vaccination rates, and suffered negative mental health impacts. Conclusion: This systematic review shows the homeless population is more susceptible to COVID-19 outcomes. Further research is needed to determine the actual impact of the pandemic on this population, and of interventions to mitigate overall risk, given the low certainty of findings from some of the low-quality evidence available. In addition, further research is required to ascertain the impact of long COVID on those experiencing homelessness, since the present review yielded no studies on this topic.

Although the impact of tourism development on residents has received a lot of attention in the literature, the health impact of tourism has not been sufficiently addressed. Due to outbreaks of COVID-19, the importance of recognition of the negative health impact of tourism is relevant. Thus, the present study aims to identify the health impact of tourism through COVID-19 outbreaks considering residents\' perspectives. In the current research, we gathered data from semi-structured interviews conducted from 10th August to 30 August 2020 to investigate community perception regarding the negative health impact of tourism through the COVID-19 era. We conducted 30 interviews with some Iranian residents. Data is analyzed by thematic analysis via MAXQDA software. Residents perceived negative health impacts through COVID-19 outbreaks as containing three subthemes including general negative impacts, direct negative impacts, and indirect negative impacts. The results also show that residents use two coping strategies to face these negative health impacts, namely negative coping strategies and positive coping strategies. Perceived negative health impacts, and residents\' coping strategies are two major themes regarding Iranian residents\' perception toward tourism negative health impacts through COVID-19 outbreaks.

We were engaged by policy stakeholders to undertake a scoping review of cannabis measurement instruments to inform the evaluation of cannabis legalization impacts. We identified instruments employed in population-based or clinical research to screen and assess cannabis use, including measurement properties. We also identified the content domains included in each instrument and gaps in the measurement of key priority areas as established by policy stakeholders.
We followed PRISMA and conducted searches on MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Web of Science, EMBASE, HAPI, Scopus and grey literature. We included publications from the past 15 years that reported the use of an instrument to measure cannabis use. Six study team members calibrated screening and data abstraction, independently identified records and abstracted data.
Across 915 included publications, we identified 187 unique instruments covering seven content domains and 35 subdomains. The most identified instruments were the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, the Timeline Follow-Back and the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (109/915; 91/915; 64/915). The Canadian Cannabis Survey addressed the most subdomains (22/35). Frequency of use, prevalence of use, and mental health impacts were the most addressed subdomains (110/187; 94/187; 67/187) and storage, growing cannabis, and second-hand exposure were the least addressed (1/187; 4/187; 6/187).
This research identified instruments and domains critical to the assessment of public health impacts of cannabis legalization, which can facilitate the harmonization of measures to inform policy development. Future research should develop new instruments for less commonly-addressed constructs and thoroughly explore psychometric properties of existing instruments.

Heat-related mortality is one of the leading causes of weather-related deaths in the United States. With changing climates and an aging population, effective adaptive strategies to address public health and environmental justice issues associated with extreme heat will be increasingly important. One effective adaptive strategy for reducing heat-related mortality is increasing tree cover. Designing such a strategy requires decision-support tools that provide spatial and temporal information about impacts. We apply such a tool to estimate spatially and temporally explicit reductions in temperature and mortality associated with a 10% increase in tree cover in 10 U.S. cities with varying climatic, demographic, and land cover conditions. Two heat metrics were applied to represent tree impacts on moderately and extremely hot days (relative to historical conditions). Increasing tree cover by 10% reduced estimated heat-related mortality in cities significantly, with total impacts generally greatest in the most populated cities. Mortality reductions vary widely across cities, ranging from approximately 50 fewer deaths in Salt Lake City to about 3800 fewer deaths in New York City. This variation is due to differences in demographics, land cover, and local climatic conditions. In terms of per capita estimated impacts, hotter and drier cities experience higher percentage reductions in mortality due to increased tree cover across the season. Phoenix potentially benefits the most from increased tree cover, with an estimated 22% reduction in mortality from baseline levels. In cooler cities such as Minneapolis, trees can reduce mortality significantly on days that are extremely hot relative to historical conditions and therefore help mitigate impacts during heat wave conditions. Recent studies project highest increases in heat-related mortality in the cooler cities, so our findings have important implications for adaptation planning. Our estimated spatial and temporal distributions of mortality reductions for each city provide crucial information needed for promoting environmental justice and equity. More broadly, the methods and model can be applied by both urban planners and the public health community for designing targeted, effective policies to reduce heat-related mortality. Additionally, land use managers can use this information to optimize tree plantings. Public stakeholders can also use these impact estimates for advocacy.

The sale of cannabis for adult recreational use has been made legal in nine US states since 2012, and nationally in Uruguay in 2013 and Canada in 2018. We review US research on the effects of legalization on cannabis use among adults and adolescents and on cannabis-related harms; the impact of legalizing adult recreational use on cannabis price, availability, potency and use; and regulatory policies that may increase or limit adverse effects of legalization. The legalization of recreational cannabis use in the US has substantially reduced the price of cannabis, increased its potency, and made cannabis more available to adult users. It appears to have increased the frequency of cannabis use among adults, but not so far among youth. It has also increased emergency department attendances and hospitalizations for some cannabis-related harms. The relatively modest effects on cannabis use to date probably reflect restrictions on the number and locations of retail cannabis outlets and the constraints on commercialization under a continued federal prohibition of cannabis. Future evaluations of legalization should monitor: cannabis sales volumes, prices and content of tetrahydrocannabinol; prevalence and frequency of cannabis use among adolescents and adults in household and high school surveys; car crash fatalities and injuries involving drivers who are cannabis-impaired; emergency department presentations related to cannabis; the demand for treatment of cannabis use disorders; and the prevalence of regular cannabis use among vulnerable young people in mental health services, schools and the criminal justice system. Governments that propose to legalize and regulate cannabis use need to fund research to monitor the impacts of these policy changes on public health, and take advantage of this research to develop ways of regulating can-nabis use that minimize adverse effects on public health.

The dependent coverage expansion (DCE), a component of the Affordable Care Act, required private health insurance policies that cover dependents to offer coverage for policyholders\' children through age 25. This review summarizes peer-reviewed research on the impact of the DCE on the chain of consequences through which it could affect public health. Specifically, we examine the impact of the DCE on insurance coverage, access to care, utilization of care, and health status. All studies find that the DCE increased insurance coverage, but evidence regarding downstream impacts is inconsistent. There is evidence that the DCE reduced high out-of-pocket expenditures and frequent emergency room visits and increased behavioral health treatment. Evidence regarding the impact of the DCE on health is sparse but suggestive of positive impacts on self-rated health and health behavior. Inferences regarding the public health impact of the DCE await studies with greater methodological diversity and longer follow-up periods.