Social vulnerability amplifies the disparate impact of mobility on COVID-19 transmissibility across the United States

Bo Huang (), Zhihui Huang, Chen Chen, Jian Lin, Tony Tam, Yingyi Hong and Sen Pei
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Bo Huang: The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Zhihui Huang: Southwest Jiao Tong University
Chen Chen: The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Jian Lin: University of California Merced
Tony Tam: The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Yingyi Hong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Sen Pei: Columbia University

Palgrave Communications, 2022, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Although human mobility is considered critical for the spread of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) both locally and globally, the extent to which such an association is impacted by social vulnerability remains unclear. Here, using multisource epidemiological and socioeconomic data of US counties, we develop a COVID-19 pandemic vulnerability index (CPVI) to quantify their levels of social vulnerability and examine how social vulnerability moderated the influence of mobility on disease transmissibility (represented by the effective reproduction number, Rt) during the US summer epidemic wave of 2020. We find that counties in the top CPVI quintile suffered almost double in regard to COVID-19 transmission (45.02% days with an Rt higher than 1) from mobility, particularly intracounty mobility, compared to counties in the lowest quintile (21.90%). In contrast, counties in the bottom CPVI quintile were only slightly affected by the level of mobility. As such, a 25% intracounty mobility change was associated with a 15.28% Rt change for counties in the top CPVI quintile, which is eight times the 1.81% Rt change for those in the lowest quintile. These findings suggest the need to account for the vulnerability of communities when making social distancing measures against mobility in the future.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1057/s41599-022-01437-5

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