Cargando…

Green spaces mitigate racial disparity of health: A higher ratio of green spaces indicates a lower racial disparity in SARS-CoV-2 infection rates in the USA

There is striking racial disparity in the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection rates in the United States. We hypothesize that the disparity is significantly smaller in areas with a higher ratio of green spaces. County level data on the SARS-CoV-2 infection rates of...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Lu, Yi, Chen, Long, Liu, Xueming, Yang, Yuwen, Sullivan, William C., Xu, Wenyan, Webster, Chris, Jiang, Bin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9754786/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33684736
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2021.106465
Descripción
Sumario:There is striking racial disparity in the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection rates in the United States. We hypothesize that the disparity is significantly smaller in areas with a higher ratio of green spaces. County level data on the SARS-CoV-2 infection rates of black and white individuals in 135 of the most urbanized counties across the United States were collected. The total population in these counties is 132,350,027, comprising 40.3% of the U.S. population. The ratio of green spaces by land-cover type in each county was extracted from satellite imagery. A hierarchical regression analysis measured cross-sectional associations between racial disparity in infection rates and green spaces, after controlling for socioeconomic, demographic, pre-existing chronic disease, and built-up area factors. We found a higher ratio of green spaces at the county level is significantly associated with a lower racial disparity in infection rates. Four types of green space have significant negative associations with the racial disparity in SARS-CoV-2 infection rates. A theoretical model with five core mechanisms and one circumstantial mechanism is presented to interpret the findings.