Health Impacts of COVID-19 through the Changes in Mobility

Soheil Sohrabi (), Fang Shu, Anika Gupta, Morteza Hossein Sabbaghian, Amirarsalan Mehrara Molan and Soheil Sajjadi
Additional contact information
Soheil Sohrabi: Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-4800, USA
Fang Shu: Department of Statistics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA
Anika Gupta: College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA
Morteza Hossein Sabbaghian: Civil Engineering Department, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS 38677, USA
Amirarsalan Mehrara Molan: Civil Engineering Department, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS 38677, USA
Soheil Sajjadi: Arcadis U.S., Raleigh, NC 27615, USA

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 5, 1-20

Abstract: Understanding the wider effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on public health is needed to respond sufficiently to the impacts and facilitate recovery. We studied the secondary health impacts of COVID-19 through the changes in transportation using a ripple effect mode. Three ripples are defined to reflect the impacts of COVID-19 on (1) transportation and the systems behind it, (2) transportation-related health risk factors, and (3) public health. COVID-19 impacts on transportation are synthesized through six areas: transportation demand, transportation mode, traffic safety, land use and built environment, transportation jobs, and transportation equity. These changes are further associated with decreased transportation-related air pollution, greenhouse gases, noise, heat, and stress. Higher rates of road casualties were observed in the area of COVID-19. Social exclusion and limitations in accessibility to healthcare and healthy food were identified as negative consequences of changes in transportation. There are uncertainties in the rate of active transportation (i.e., walking and cycling) and related crashes that require further investigation. The findings of this study uncover the complex and relatively unknown impacts of COVID-19 on public health through changes in transportation.

Keywords: COVID-19; transportation; modal shift; active transportation; equity; traffic safety; sustainable transportation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4095/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4095/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:5:p:4095-:d:1078598

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().