Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) infects the lower respiratory tract in children under the age of two years and is spread through droplet and contact with infected persons. An estimated 200,000 children suffer from complications of RSV annually worldwide. Palivizumab is a monoclonal antibody used to immunize children from RSV and has been on the market since 1988. In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated its policy for recommendation of RSV in premature infants. The objective of this capstone is to propose an evaluation framework with an example of how it could have been applied to assess the impact of the AAP policy change on RSV vaccination use and RSV outcomes among premature infants. The proposed evaluation framework would be a unique link between birth certificate records and surveys of parents/guardians of 32 week gestation premature infants or less in the metropolitan Atlanta area. The birth certificate data would identify “at risk” infants and would allow for selection of a sample of parents/guardians, both pre-policy change (August 1, 2013 to July 30, 2014) and post-policy change (August 1, 2014 to July 30, 2015). The primary endpoints would be: initiation and completion of the RSV vaccine series and RSV infection rates. Moderating variables would be obtained from birth certificate data (e.g. mother’s education and race) and survey data (e.g. attitudes toward vaccine acceptance). The evaluation framework proposed in this Capstone can be used in future analyses of RSV vaccination policy changes. It can also be generalized to other geographic areas in the US and used for routine surveillance of RSV vaccination use and RSV outcomes.

No description available.

Thesis (M. S.)--Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007. / Richard Dagenhart, Committee Chair ; Michael Gamble, Committee Member ; David Green, Committee Member.

The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) Transit Oriented Development (TOD) program has been expanding the number of stations being considered for development of surface parking lots and into the air rights over certain rail stations. As of 2015, MARTA has six rail stations in various stages of TOD development, which will increase multi-modal options for metro Atlanta residents. The overarching goal of TOD development is to increase transit ridership and reduce auto-dependency; hence quantifying the potential benefits of TOD development in terms of ridership is paramount. Despite several drawbacks, travel demand models have historically been utilized to forecast ridership for land use changes and transit improvements. Direct ridership models (DRMs) are transit demand forecasting methods that can be applied to land development in cases where traditional travel demand models (TDMs) are not well suited. DRMs leverage geographic tools commonly used by planners to take advantage of small scale pedestrian environment factors immediately surrounding transit stations. Although DRM data and methods can achieve greater precision in predicting local walk-access transit trips, the lack of regional and large-scale datasets reduces the ability to model ridership generated from riders outside the immediate vicinity of the rail stations. Stations that have high multi-modal access trips, particularly via personal vehicle and connecting buses, are not typically accounted for by DRMs. Hence, this study focuses on pedestrian-based rail boardings only, a metric that also allows the use of a large scale onboard survey distributed by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) in late 2009 and early 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia. Analysis of the large scale on-board ridership survey also reveals variables that may be useful in forecasting ridership at the station level when coupled with available census data. Comparison of variables such as income, age, gender, ethnicity, and race from census data with the large scale survey guided the selection of candidate variables to be included in a DRM for MARTA rail stations. Results from the comparison showed that using census data in DRMs does not always accurately reflect the ridership demographics. Notable differences in pedestrian-based ridership and transit catchments appear to occur in populations making less than $40,000, African American populations, and the young and elderly populations. Large differences in the survey and census data reported around the stations raise questions about the usability of census data in predicting ridership at rail stations. Despite the shortcomings of using census data to directly predict walk access transit ridership, an ordinary least squared (OLS) regression model predicts a high proportion of variance of pedestrian-based ridership in Atlanta, Georgia. A small number of variables were incorporated into a DRM to show the strong relationship of employment density with pedestrian based ridership. The number of low income residents was also influential in increasing ridership via walk access.

This study analyzes the relationship between comprehensive planning and actual development (as measured by changes in welfare) for 158 jurisdictions in metropolitan Atlanta. Relying on ecological economics for a method to measure welfare and planning literature for a method to evaluate the content of comprehensive plans, this dissertation uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Development is measured for four dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social, environment, and resource) using a modified Genuine Progress Indicator, and the metropolitan Atlanta area is found to have had weakly sustainable development from 1980 to 2000. In all places, economic welfare increased and resource welfare decreased. Social and environmental development had mixed results with about half of jurisdictions showing increases in environmental welfare while less than a handful showed increases in social welfare. Comprehensive plans were found to have a range of overall plan quality scores (the average of scores of policy statements in a plan) from 1.3 to 3.2 with a mean of 2.3 out of a maximum of 4. Of 2564 policy statements, 541 (or 21\%) were high quality statements scoring 4/4 points while 708 (or 28\%) received no quality points - they were weakly worded, vague, and not measurable. The average commitment to sustainable development (percent of policy statements in a plan that are related to a principle of sustainable development) is 39\% with a minumum of 9\% and a maximum of 80\%. Plan policy statements coded for principles of sustainable development were found to have significantly higher quality scores while overall plan quality scores were not found to be correlated to the plan commmitment to sustainable development; this implies that plans are generally either rigid (having highs scores) or visionary (having high commitment to sustainable development) overall. Plan quality was found to have a significant negative relationship with sustainable development, when dimensions are considered. This relationship was stronger for plans completed within the study time period (before 2000), suggesting that this relationship may be causal. The negative result is unexpected and leads to a rejection of the hypothesis that high quality planning would be significantly and positively related to development. On the other hand, plan commitment to sustainable development was found to be weakly positively related to sustainable development although the dimensions of this relationship changed over time. As such, the hypothesis that commitment to sustainable development would be significantly and positively related to development cannot be rejected. These results hold even when looking at distinct growth patterns across the metropolitan region, suggesting that the relationships between plans and development may be applicable to other places.

Thesis (M. S.)--Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 308-327). Also available online via the Georgia State University Electronic Theses and Dissertations Database website (http://etd.gsu.edu/).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Title from title screen. Charles Jaret, committee chair; Charles Gallagher, Wendy Simonds, committee members. Electronic text (343 p. : ill. (some col.), col. maps) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed July 25, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 317-338).

This thesis conducts a case study of how MARTA could address climate change adaptation through its transit asset management program. Two climate-modeling approaches are utilized to project potential future climate scenarios within MARTA's service area to identify significant climate stressors. These climate stressors are used to help identify vulnerable assets, operations, and locations in the MARTA system through several interviews conducted with key MARTA staff. The results of this basic climate vulnerability assessment are used to develop a series of short-term and long-term adaptation strategies that address these vulnerabilities. Next, a framework is proposed for addressing climate adaptation through MARTA's existing asset management program. Finally, the thesis proposes a general framework that other transit agencies could utilize to address climate adaptation through their asset management programs. The results of the climate vulnerability assessment indicate that the MARTA service area is likely to experience longer exposure to higher temperatures, flooding, wider variations in temperature, droughts, and more frequent high-wind events. Of these stressors, the MARTA system is most vulnerable to the effects of extreme and prolonged heat as well as flooding caused by intense precipitation events. Adaptation strategies to address these vulnerabilities include more frequent inspection of HVAC systems on buses and rail vehicles, increasing pumping capacity at underground rail stations, and incorporating low-impact developments into surrounded station areas. The limitations of the results of this case study and areas for further research from these limitations are also presented.