State variation in neighborhood COVID-19 burden across the United States

A lack of fine, spatially-resolute case data for the U.S. has prevented the examination of how COVID-19 infection burden has been distributed across neighborhoods, a key determinant of both risk and resilience. Without more spatially resolute data, efforts to identify and mitigate the long-term fallout from COVID-19 in vulnerable communities will remain difficult to quantify and intervene on.

We leveraged spatially-referenced data from 21 states collated through the COVID Neighborhood Project to examine the distribution of COVID-19 cases across neighborhoods and states in the U.S. We also linked the COVID-19 case data with data on the neighborhood social environment from the National Neighborhood Data Archive. We then estimated correlations between neighborhood COVID-19 burden and features of the neighborhood social environment.

We find that the distribution of COVID-19 at the neighborhood-level varies within and between states. The median case count per neighborhood (coefficient of variation (CV)) in Wisconsin is 3078.52 (0.17) per 10,000 population, indicating a more homogenous distribution of COVID-19 burden, whereas in Vermont the median case count per neighborhood (CV) is 810.98 (0.84) per 10,000 population. We also find that correlations between features of the neighborhood social environment and burden vary in magnitude and direction by state.

Our findings underscore the importance that local contexts may play when addressing the long-term social and economic fallout communities will face from COVID-19.