Neighbourhood income and physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

Jonathan Jay (), Jacob Bor, Elaine O. Nsoesie, Sarah K. Lipson, David K. Jones, Sandro Galea and Julia Raifman
Additional contact information
Jonathan Jay: Boston University School of Public Health
Jacob Bor: Boston University School of Public Health
Elaine O. Nsoesie: Boston University School of Public Health
Sarah K. Lipson: Boston University School of Public Health
David K. Jones: Boston University School of Public Health
Sandro Galea: Boston University School of Public Health
Julia Raifman: Boston University School of Public Health

Nature Human Behaviour, 2020, vol. 4, issue 12, 1294-1302

Abstract: Abstract Physical distancing has been the primary strategy to control COVID-19 in the United States. We used mobility data from a large, anonymized sample of smartphone users to assess the relationship between neighbourhood income and physical distancing during the pandemic. We found a strong gradient between neighbourhood income and physical distancing. Individuals in high-income neighbourhoods increased their days at home substantially more than individuals in low-income neighbourhoods did. Residents of low-income neighbourhoods were more likely to work outside the home, compared to residents in higher-income neighbourhoods, but were not more likely to visit locations such as supermarkets, parks and hospitals. Finally, we found that state orders were only associated with small increases in staying home in low-income neighbourhoods. Our findings indicate that people in lower-income neighbourhoods have faced barriers to physical distancing, particularly needing to work outside the home, and that state physical distancing policies have not mitigated these disparities.

Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-00998-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nathum:v:4:y:2020:i:12:d:10.1038_s41562-020-00998-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nathumbehav/

DOI: 10.1038/s41562-020-00998-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Human Behaviour is currently edited by Stavroula Kousta

More articles in Nature Human Behaviour from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().