Impact of urban structure on infectious disease spreading

Javier Aguilar,Mattia Mazzoli,Sandro Meloni,Gourab Ghoshal,José J Ramasco,Alec Kirkley,Adam Sadilek,Sayat Mimar,Surendra Hazarie,Aleix Bassolas,Vincenzo Nicosia

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-06720-8

Abstract

The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been holding the world hostage for several years now. Mobility is key to viral spreading and its restriction is the main non-pharmaceutical interventions to fight the virus expansion. Previous works have shown a connection between the structural organization of cities and the movement patterns of their residents. This puts urban centers in the focus of epidemic surveillance and interventions. Here we show that the organization of urban flows has a tremendous impact on disease spreading and on the amenability of different mitigation strategies. By studying anonymous and aggregated intra-urban flows in a variety of cities in the United States and other countries, and a combination of empirical analysis and analytical methods, we demonstrate that the response of cities to epidemic spreading can be roughly classified in two major types according to the overall organization of those flows. Hierarchical cities, where flows are concentrated primarily between mobility hotspots, are particularly vulnerable to the rapid spread of epidemics. Nevertheless, mobility restrictions in such types of cities are very effective in mitigating the spread of a virus. Conversely, in sprawled cities which present many centers of activity, the spread of an epidemic is much slower, but the response to mobility restrictions is much weaker and less effective. Investing resources on early monitoring and prompt ad-hoc interventions in more vulnerable cities may prove helpful in containing and reducing the impact of future pandemics.

Highlights

The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been holding the world hostage for several years
The primary response to the early onset of the epidemic were mobility restrictions corresponding to stay-at-home measures, modifying the spatial patterns of urban mobility and disrupting most of the routes used by the virus to propagate
We studied how mobility restrictions in urban areas affect the propagation of an infectious disease

Summary

Introduction

The ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been holding the world hostage for several years now. Previous works have shown a connection between the structural organization of cities and the movement patterns of their residents This puts urban centers in the focus of epidemic surveillance and interventions. In. the history of urban planning, e.g. after the black plague or cholera, ventilation of streets, indoor daylight, large public squares and parks became architectural recipes to mitigate the spread of disease, in particular respiratory ailments such as tuberculosis. The history of urban planning, e.g. after the black plague or cholera, ventilation of streets, indoor daylight, large public squares and parks became architectural recipes to mitigate the spread of disease, in particular respiratory ailments such as tuberculosis Such measures helped to reduce the density of cities, created safer and less infectious residential areas and increased the opportunities for physical distancing in public spaces, while allowed for better isolation of affected individuals from the larger urban population[49–51]

Methods

Results

Conclusion