Abstract
Social distancing prescribed by policy makers in response to COVID-19 raises important questions as to how effectively people of color can distance. Due to inequalities from residential segregation, Hispanic and Black populations have challenges in meeting health expectations. However, segregated neighborhoods also support the formation of social bonds that relate to healthy behaviors. We evaluate the question of non-White distancing using social mobility data from Google on three sites: workplaces, grocery stores, and recreational locations. Employing hierarchical linear modeling and geographically weighted regression, we find the relation of race/ethnicity to COVID-19 distancing is varied across the United States. The HLM models show that compared to Black populations, Hispanic populations overall more effectively distance from recreation sites and grocery stores: each point increase in percent Hispanic was related to residents being 0.092 percent less likely (p< 0.05) to visit recreational sites and 0.127 percent less likely (p< 0.01) to visit grocery stores since the onset of COVID-19. However, the GWR models show there are places where the percent Black is locally related to recreation distancing while percent Hispanic is not. Further, these models show the association of percent Black to recreation and grocery distancing can be locally as strong as 1.057 percent (p< 0.05) and 0.989 percent (p< 0.05), respectively. Next, the HLM models identified that Black/White residential isolation was related to less distancing, with each point of isolation residents were 11.476 percent more likely (p< 0.01) to go to recreational sites and 7.493 percent more likely (p< 0.05) to visit grocery stores compared to before COVID-19. These models did not find a measurable advantage/disadvantage for Black populations in these places compared to White populations. COVID-19 policy should not assume disadvantage in achieving social distancing accrue equally to different racial/ethnic minorities.
Highlights
IntroductionAccording to data reported in the New York Times [1], in the United States non-Hispanic Black ( Black) and Hispanic people are "three times as likely to become infected [by
This study explores how racial/ethnic segregation in a particular area predict physical distancing in response to COVID-19 across the United States
The hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) model shows Hispanic populations are more able to distance from recreation and grocery sites than Black populations
Summary
According to data reported in the New York Times [1], in the United States non-Hispanic Black ( Black) and Hispanic people are "three times as likely to become infected [by. Data on violent crime can be accessed through the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report site (https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr). The social capital index can be obtained through the project website(https://aese.psu.edu/nercrd/community/ social-capital-resources). Data on state and county policy dates came from the National Association of Counties website (https://www.naco.org/)
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