Racial/Ethnic Residential Segregation and the First Wave of SARS-CoV-2 Infection Rates: A Spatial Analysis of Four U.S. Cities

Anderson, Kathryn Freeman; Lopez, Angelica; Simburger, Dylan

Previous research has linked racial/ethnic residential segregation to a number of poor health conditions, including infectious disease. Here, we examine how racial/ethnic residential segregation is related to the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. We examine infection rates by zip code level segregation in four major cities across the U.S.: New York City, Chicago, Houston, and San Diego. We also include a number of area-level Census variables in order to analyze how other factors may help account for the infection rate. We find that both Black and Latino residential clustering are significantly and positively related to a higher SARS-CoV-2 infection rate across all four cities, and that this effect is strong even when accounting for a number of other social conditions and factors that are salient to the transmission of infectious disease. As a result, we argue that neighborhood-level racial/ethnic patterning may serve as an important structural mechanism for disparities in SARS-CoV-2 infection.