Dr. Zeynab Jouzi - My Research Corner

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Homelessness and Health Equity in New York City

Though homelessness is frequently depicted as a crisis in the media, the lived experience of people that are experiencing homelessness are often overlooked. I conducted qualitative interviews with adults at a transitional housing facility in Queens, NYC to examine the effectiveness of the provided support services in transitional housing. I am also identifying the gaps and proposing services to fill these gaps.

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Double Up Food Bucks in New York State, a nutrition incentive program

In this study, I evaluate the impact of the “Double Up” Food Bucks program that aims to increase the purchase of fruits and vegetables among low-income consumers participating in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in New York State. I conducted in depth interviews with farmers that were working with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) system in NY State to better understand the landscape for SNAP recipients, and CSA farmers in the state to identify new opportunities for Double Up program growth.

Exploring the Association between Food Security and Natural Resources

The dual challenges of food security and environmental conservation, although critically important, remain underexplored. During my PhD studies at North Carolina State University, I applied geospatial analytics and machine learning approaches to decipher the spatial dynamics intersecting natural resources in the protected areas and food security utilizing data from the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). The DHS is a nationwide survey with a sample size of approximately 11,000 households in Zimbabwe. My findings revealed that in rural areas, living closer to protected areas was associated with better nutrition in children.

Key Patterns of Climate Gentrification and its Contribution to Environmental Justice; a Multi-institutional Research Project

Climate gentrification refers to the process by which climate risks (e.g., floods or sea-level rise) can cause or exacerbate gentrification—a general process through which existing residents are displaced due to investments in a community. My work on this topic, investigates the various typologies of climate gentrification on the U.S. East Coast. This large-scale study merged a range of socioeconomic, environmental, and housing indicators to capture the multi-temporal, multi-spatial, and multi-dimensional nature of climate gentrification pathways beyond traditionally placed-based analyses of climate gentrification. In my capacity as the Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) for this multi-institutional research project including investigators from Vanderbilt University, Virginia Tech University, Purdue University, University of Guelph, North Carolina State University, and Colorado State University, I received support for capacity building and computational resources from the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC).

Agricultural Systems and Their Influence on Food Security

Agricultural systems have a tremendous effect on food access, especially for small-scale farmers in the economically developing countries. To combat global food insecurity, we must prioritize support for farmers. My work in this area focuses on determining the merits and drawbacks of contemporary agricultural strategies like organic farming and genetically modified (GM) crops. In a review paper that I led, we established that organic farming offers substantial benefits, especially for small-scale farmers, mostly by increasing resilience to environmental changes and augmenting income.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

For a full list of my peer reviewed publications, please visit my Google Scholar profile.

Peer-reviewed journal articles (*indicates corresponding author)

Jouzi, Z.*, San Diego, L., Lewis Jr, N. A., & Leak, T. M. (2024). How Can Transitional HousingBe Improved? Insights from Residents’ Experiences and Perceptions in New YorkCity. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 21(7), 829.https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21070829

Fong, C., Galaz-Garcia, C., Abbasi, E., Gubbins., N Jouzi, Z. (2024). Broadening participation inenvironmental data science: insights from practitioners. Environmental Data Science, 3, e15.https://doi.org/10.1017/eds.2024.9

Jouzi, Z. *, Leung, Y.F., Nelson, S. (2023). Characterizing the Association between ChildMalnutrition and Protected Areas in Sub Saharan Africa Using Unsupervised Clustering. Journalof Environmental Studies and Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-023-00880-3

Jouzi, Z. *, Nelson, S. A., & Leung, Y. F. (2023). Spatial heterogeneity of child malnutrition,proximity to protected areas and environmental variabilities in Zimbabwe. GeoJournal, 1-17.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-023-10842-5

Best, K. B., Jouzi, Z., Islam, M. S., Kirby, T., Nixon, R., Hossan, A., & Nyiawung, R. A. (2023).Typologies of multiple vulnerabilities and climate gentrification across the East Coast of theUnited States. Urban Climate, 48, 101430. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2023.101430

Jouzi, Z. *, Leung, Y. F., & Nelson, S. (2022). Addressing the Food Security and ConservationChallenges: Can be Aligned instead of Apposed? Frontiers in Conservation Science, 75.https://doi.org/10.3389/fcosc.2022.921895

Best, K., & Jouzi, Z. (2022). Climate Gentrification: Methods, Gaps, and Framework for FutureResearch. Frontiers in Climate, 23. https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2022.828067

Jouzi, Z. *, Leung, Y.F. and Nelson, S., (2020). Terrestrial Protected Areas and Food Security: ASystematic Review of Research Approaches. Environments, 7(10), p.83.3. https://doi.org/10.3390/environments7100083
Jouzi, Z., Azadi, H., Taheri, F., Zarafshani, K., Gebrehiwot, K., Van Passel, S., Lebailly, P.,(2017). Organic farming and small-scale farmers: main opportunities and challenges, EcologicalEconomics. 132, pp.144-154. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.10.016

Azadi, H., Samiee, A., Mahmoudi, H., Jouzi, Z., Rafiaani Khachak, P., De Maeyer, P. and Witlox,F., (2016). Genetically modified crops and small-scale farmers: main opportunities andchallenges. Critical reviews in biotechnology, 36(3), pp.434-446.http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/07388551.2014.990413

PRESENTATIONS

Oral Conference Presentations

Jouzi, Z., 2023. “Environmental Justice and Health Equity, a participatory panel”, American Association of Geographers, Annual Meeting, Denver, Co. USA.
Jouzi, Z., Leung, Y., Nelson, S. 2020. “Exploring the Strength of Association between Vegetation Cover and Malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa”. The 26th Annual International Society of Tropical Foresters (ISTF) conference. Yale University, USA.
Jouzi, Z., Nelson, S., Leung, Y., 2019. “A proposed remote-sensing approach to analyzing the association between environmental changes and human health in Sub-Saharan Africa”. American Association of Geographers, Annual Meeting, Washington D.C. USA.

Poster Presentations and conference abstracts

Owoputi, I., Kwak, Y., Lewis Jr, N., Figuerora, R., Jouzi, Z. and Leak, T., 2024. Barriers and Motivators for Grocery Store Stakeholders Implementing Fruit and Vegetable Incentive Programs. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 56(8), p.S1.
Jouzi, Z., Leung, Y., Nelson, S. 2021. “Mapping the Associations between Protected Areas and Child Malnutrition”. American Association of Geographers virtual conference.
Jouzi, Z., Leung, Y., Nelson, S. 2020. "Examining the association of child malnutrition with socio-economic and biophysical factors across scales in Sub-Saharan Africa". The eighth annual International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD). Columbia University, USA.
Babajani, A., Jouzi, Z. 2019. “Conventional and Organic Farmers in Iran: A Comparison Study on Perceptions, Socio-Economic and Demographic Characteristics”. Tropentag Conference. Universities of Kassel and Goettingen, Germany.
Jouzi, Z., Smart, L., Sills, E., Vukomanovic, J., 2018. “Identifying Conservation Priorities through Participatory Ecosystem Services Mapping in Coastal Zones”. The US-IALE 2018 Annual Meeting, Chicago IL, USA.
Vukomanovic, J., Smart, L. S., Sanchez, G. M., Jouzi, Z. S., & Sills, E. O. 2018. Participatory mapping and modeling of land change in coastal South Carolina: The Johns Island Community Conservation Initiative.

Invited Talks

Panelist at “Barriers and Opportunities for Facilitating Team Science”, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington D.C. 2024
Panelist at “Panel Discussion with Past UCGIS I-GUIDE Community Champions”, virtual session hosted by NSF I-GUIDE and the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science. 2023
Speaker for “Promoting Health Equity in Transitional Housing in New York City”, Cornell Center for Health Equity. Weill Cornell Medicine. NYC. 2023

Guest Lecturer

“Sustainable Food System”, for Food Science and Environment (NUTR756), Hunter College, The City University of New York, CUNY, NYC. 2024
“Food System and Climate Change”, for Food Science (NFS131), Hunter College, The City University of New York, CUNY, NYC. 2023
“The Contribution Project at the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem”, for the Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement (PRYDE), Cornell University, NY. 2023
“The Farm Bill”, for Public Health Nutrition (NS 4500), Cornell University, NY. 2023
“Remote Sensing Data for Interdisciplinary Research”, The Energy Poverty PIRE in Southern Africa (EPPSA) seminar, The University of NC at Chapel Hill, NC. 2020
“Water in the Middle East”, for the Geography of the Middle East & North Africa (GGS 325), George Mason University, Virginia. 2019

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Homelessness and Health Equity​ in New York City