COVID-19 and income profile: How communities in the United States responded to mobility restrictions in the pandemic's early stages

TL;DR

This study analyzes how income levels affected social distancing behaviors during the early COVID-19 pandemic in U.S. communities, revealing that higher-income areas adhered better to mobility restrictions based on real-world data.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of mobility data across U.S. communities, highlighting income-related disparities in social distancing performance during the pandemic's early stages.

Findings

High-income communities showed better social distancing performance.

Disparities in mobility behavior are linked to income levels.

Low-income communities face additional challenges like employment and access to essentials.

Abstract

Mobility interventions in communities play a critical role in containing a pandemic at an early stage. The real-world practice of social distancing can enlighten policymakers and help them implement more efficient and effective control measures. A lack of such research using real-world observations initiates this article. We analyzed the social distancing performance of 66,149 census tracts from 3,142 counties in the United States with a specific focus on income profile. Six daily mobility metrics, including a social distancing index, stay-at-home percentage, miles traveled per person, trip rate, work trip rate, and non-work trip rate, were produced for each census tract using the location data from over 100 million anonymous devices on a monthly basis. Each mobility metric was further tabulated by three perspectives of social distancing performance: "best performance", "effort", and "consistency". We found that for all 18 indicators, high-income communities demonstrated better social distancing performance. Such disparities between communities of different income levels are presented in detail in this article. The comparisons across scenarios also raise other concerns for low-income communities, such as employment status, working conditions, and accessibility to basic needs. This article lays out a series of facts extracted from real-world data and offers compelling perspectives for future discussions.