The number one leading cause of death in 2017 for Americans was cardiovascular disease (CVD), and health disparities can exacerbate risks. This study evaluates the 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) (n = 437,436) to estimate population risks for behavioral, socio-economic, psychological, and biological factors. A general linear model with a quasi-binomial link function indicated higher risks for the following groups: smokers (odds ratio, OR = 0.688), individuals with higher body mass index scores (OR = 1.023), persons unable to work (OR = 2.683), individuals with depression (OR = 1.505), workers who missed more days due to mental issues (OR = 1.12), the elderly, males (OR = 1.954), those in race categories “indigenous Americans, Alaskan non-Hispanics”, “Black Hispanics,” or “other, non-Hispanic,” and individuals with lower income. Surprisingly, increased consumption of alcohol was not found to be a risk factor as in other studies. Additional study of alcohol risk factors is needed. Further, Black non-Hispanics were associated with lower rates of CVD/MI (myocardial infarction), a finding that is supported by recent evidence of more unhealthy behaviors in other races. The results of this study highlight 2018 CVD/MI disparities based on the BRFSS and suggest the need for additional policy interventions including education and providing increased access to health care for the disadvantaged. The principles of beneficence and justice require policy interventions such as these.

“Green Cities” are cities with the ultimate goal of achieving a net zero-carbon footprint in energy, transportation, architecture, and the activity cost chain of businesses. These cities define the future of our planet by emphasizing the efficient use of resources and the well-being of communities. This study focuses on “Green Cities” and the restaurant industry. It examines the beliefs of restaurant owners/managers on the positive impact of sustainability practices on financial situation, reputation, and attraction of customers, and the relationship between such beliefs and the extent of engagement in sustainability practices. The research also explores whether declaring a city “Green” enhances the sustainability practices in that city. The results indicate that the restaurant owners/managers in all three studied cities strongly believe that sustainability practices enhance the financial performance, reputation of the restaurant, and attraction of customers, yet a significant percentage of the wastes and by-products of the operations of the studied restaurants are discarded. In addition, the results of the study show no significant impact on sustainability practices in the studied restaurants for the declared “Green” cities of Providence (U.S.) and Nancy (France) versus the city of Springfield (U.S.). The study concludes by highlighting the potential reasons underlying the lack of sustainability practices in the restaurant industry and proposes recommendations that can enhance such practices in this industry.

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Sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies of companies delineate the health and the welfare of the communities across the globe. The two major goals of this study are (1) To explore the relationship between the environmental regulations, market value, and adoption of sustainability and CSR strategies of the publicly traded firms listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) and (2) To examine the impact of being added to or deleted from DJSI per different market sectors for the firms in the U.S. and the European Union (EU). The selected starting window, the year 2015, for studying the impact of addition to or deletion from the DJS indices was the Paris Accord proposal by the EU and strict sustainability regulations of the EU versus the U.S. We used event study methodology and regression analyses to explain the cumulative abnormal returns utilizing firms’ characteristics and specific market sectors. In addition, the other focus of the study was on heavy (polluting) industries and investigating if the addition to or deletion of the firms in these industries from the sustainability indices had an impact on the market value. The findings of this study reveal no impact of the environmental rules and regulations on adopting sustainability and CSR strategies by either the EU or the U.S. firms. The novel findings of this study indicate a significant negative impact on the market value of firms in heavy industries, Energy, Basic Materials, and Utilities when added to the DJS indices. The study discusses the underlying reasons for these differences and proposes strategies to enhance the impact of addition to or deletion from the DISI to increase firms’ commitments to sustainability and CSR strategies and altering the attitudes of the investors.

This study develops a statistical technique that allows comparison of objective and perceptive financial measures of the performance construct. The proposed technique provides a simple and statistically meaningful method for conversion of objective or archival financial data into scales that can be used for testing the convergent validity with corresponding perceptive measures of performance. Use of the proposed technique can enhance flexibility in application of data collected from different sources and strengthen the generalizability of the findings across studies in the strategic management literature. Empirical data of performance measures are used to demonstrate the use of the technique.