Americans' responses to COVID-19 stay-home orders differed according to population density
Lockdowns did not stop people from visiting parks and beaches; electoral results also linked to compliance

Date:
October 21, 2020
Source:
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Summary:
Americans strongly reduced their visits to grocery stores,
pharmacies, and transit stations following stay-at-home orders
from mayors and governors earlier this year, but did not reduce
their visits to parks and beaches.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Americans strongly reduced their visits to grocery stores, pharmacies, and transit stations following stay-at-home orders from mayors and governors earlier this year, but did not reduce their visits to parks and beaches, according to a study co-authored by a researcher at the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health.


==========================================================================
In the study, which appeared online September 30 in the journal Landscape
and Urban Planning, the researchers examined publicly available Google
data based on anonymized mobility information from millions of Android,
iPhone, and Google Maps users in the United States to destinations
including grocery stores, rail stations, and parks. The researchers
analyzed how total movements changed, at the county level, following
local shelter-in-place orders. They found relatively large reductions
in visits to "essential" destinations such as grocery stores -- but
effectively no reduction in "non-essential" visits to parks and other
outdoor recreational spots such as parks and beaches.

The analysis, which included all 771 metropolitan counties in Google's
dataset from the first day of stay-at-home order in each county until
May 11, 2020, showed that in counties classified as densely populated, reductions to essential trips were even more pronounced.

"The main challenge of compliance with stay-at-home orders in dense and
compact areas doesn't seem to relate to 'essential' trips to grocery
stores, pharmacies, and transit stations -- trips that people in these
areas seemed quite willing to reduce," says study senior author Shima
Hamidi, PhD, Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health in the
Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Bloomberg
School. "This could be due to access to better services such as
home-delivery grocery shopping in dense areas. Also, recent evidence
shows that residents of dense places are more likely to adhere to the stay-at-home order, being more cognizant of the threat." Mandatory social distancing and lockdown measures imposed by states and municipalities
have been the most widely used public health tools against COVID-19 so
far. But the degree to which people comply with these mandates has been
unclear and relatively unstudied.

Hamidi and her co-author Ahoura Zandiatashbar, PhD, an assistant professor
of Urban and Regional Planning at San Jose State University, found that
for all 771 counties covered by the Google dataset, lockdowns appeared
to have a sizeable impact on the three major categories of travel they examined. Trips to grocery stores and pharmacies following lockdowns and
up to May 11 stayed, on average, 13.3 percent below the local baseline
averages established in January and February. Trips to transit stations
stayed 37.4 percent below baseline. By contrast, trips to parks, beaches,
and other outdoor recreational spots were only 0.4 percent lower on
average -- effectively unchanged.



========================================================================== Hamidi suggests that park and beach visits may not have declined because
they were allowable under many stay-at-home mandates, may have been
important in reducing stress amid the pandemic, and may also have been
widely perceived as low risk. However, she also notes that there is some evidence from epidemiological studies suggesting that parks and other
outdoor spaces can present a significant chance of virus transmission, especially if relatively crowded.

Hamidi and Zandiatashbar analyzed how trip trends varied according to
different factors, and found that trips to grocery stores/pharmacies and transit stations -- often categorized as "essential" trips -- dropped
more significantly in denser ("compact") counties, while trips to parks
and beaches in these counties slightly increased.

"This is not surprising but could be concerning, since visiting parks
during the pandemic has its own risks," says Hamidi. "Parks could be
a potential hotspot for the transmission of the virus, especially if
people don't physically distance. In addition, the risk of exposure to
COVID-19 in parks is potentially even greater among the homeless who use
parks frequently, which could eventually elevate the risk of COVID-19
exposure to the general population." The researchers also analyzed trip changes during lockdown periods and counties' electoral results, and found slightly lower compliance overall, especially related to essential trips,
in metropolitan counties where Donald Trump won a higher percent of the
vote in the 2016 presidential election.

The researchers observed as well that reductions in the three types
of trips tended to deepen in the days just after the announcement of
lockdowns, but then lessen as lockdowns wore on.

"We urge decision-makers, planners, and public health officials to design
and implement social distancing guidelines specifically for parks and
similar areas," Hamidi says, "and to closely monitor people's social
distancing behaviors in and travel patterns to parks in relatively
dense urban spaces with higher per capita COVID-19 mortality rates."
"Compact development and adherence to stay-at-home order during the
COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal investigation in the United States"
was written by Shima Hamidi and Ahoura Zandiatashbar.

The research was supported by the Bloomberg School's Bloomberg American
Health Initiative.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Johns_Hopkins_University_Bloomberg_School_of_Public Health. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Shima Hamidi, Ahoura Zandiatashbar. Compact development and
adherence to
stay-at-home order during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal
investigation in the United States. Landscape and Urban Planning,
Sept.

30, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2020.103952 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201021130136.htm

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