An ecological study of the association between neighborhood racial and economic residential segregation with COVID-19 vulnerability in the United States’ capital city
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Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on American life. However, the burden
of the pandemic has not been distributed equally. The purpose of this study was to
investigate whether racial and economic residential segregation were associated with
COVID-19 related factors in the nation's capital, Washington D.C., during the first
year of the pandemic.
Methods
Racial, economic, and racialized economic segregation were assessed using the Index
of Concentration at the Extremes measure and data from the 2014–2018 American Community
Survey. COVID-19 related factors (i.e., incidence, testing rate, and percent positivity)
were assessed using data from the Washington D.C. government. Spearman rank correlation
was used to assess the relationship between each segregation measure and each COVID-19
related factor.
Results
Washington D.C. neighborhoods with a higher concentration of African Americans, lower
income residents, and African Americans with low income had a higher incidence of
COVID-19 and greater percent positivity, but lower testing rates compared to their
counterparts.
Conclusions
There is a geographic mismatch between neighborhoods most vulnerable to COVID-19 and
the neighborhoods where the testing resources are being used. More resources should
be allocated to the most vulnerable neighborhoods to address the COVID-19 pandemic
in an equitable manner.
Features of neighborhoods or residential environments may affect health and contribute to social and race/ethnic inequalities in health. The study of neighborhood health effects has grown exponentially over the past 15 years. This chapter summarizes key work in this area with a particular focus on chronic disease outcomes (specifically obesity and related risk factors) and mental health (specifically depression and depressive symptoms). Empirical work is classified into two main eras: studies that use census proxies and studies that directly measure neighborhood attributes using a variety of approaches. Key conceptual and methodological challenges in studying neighborhood health effects are reviewed. Existing gaps in knowledge and promising new directions in the field are highlighted.
[0001]National Institutes of Health, National Human Genome Research Institute, Social and
Behavioral Research Branch, Social Epidemiology Research Unit
Author notes
[*
]Corresponding author: National Institutes of Health, National Human Genome Research
Institute, Social Epidemiology Research Unit, MD
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