Demons of density do higher-density environments put people at greater risk of contagious disease?

Ingrid Gould Ellen, Renata Howland and Sherry Glied

Journal of Housing Economics, 2023, vol. 59, issue PB

Abstract: We study the relationship between density and COVID during three distinct waves of the pandemic in New York City. Unlike prior work, our analysis uses individual Medicaid claims records, which include a rich array of demographic characteristics and pre-existing medical conditions and cover a near universe of low-income New Yorkers. In brief, our results suggest that living in higher density neighborhoods did not heighten the risk of COVID hospitalization. The size of a multifamily building made little difference either, and people living in public housing developments, which are typically highly dense environments, were less likely to be hospitalized for COVID. However, while neighborhood and building density do not seem to matter, we find significant, positive relationships between COVID hospitalization rates and household size. Specifically, we see that people living in large households or in neighborhoods with high levels of crowding were more likely to be hospitalized for COVID. In other words, our results suggest that crowded living quarters – which can occur at any level of population density – and not density itself, increase the risk of COVID hospitalization. We also see a strong correlation between being unstably housed or living in institutional settings and COVID hospitalizations.

Keywords: COVID; Density; Neighborhood; Housing; Crowding; Subsidized housing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1051137722000778
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jhouse:v:59:y:2023:i:pb:s1051137722000778

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhe.2022.101905

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Housing Economics is currently edited by H. O. Pollakowski

More articles in Journal of Housing Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().