Wealth, health, and beyond: Is COVID-19 less likely to spread in rich neighborhoods?

Abstract

Since December 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has quickly spread across the world. The traditional understanding of the relationship between wealth and the spread of contagious diseases is that similar to many precedent epidemics, the pandemic spread easily in poor neighborhoods in many countries. The environmental and socioeconomic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic are still poorly understood, thus this paper examines the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and the spread of the pandemic through a case study of Shenzhen, a Chinese megacity with many low-income rural migrants. The major finding is that wealthier and larger neighborhoods in Shenzhen were more likely to be infected in the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. This spread pattern is likely to result from China’s strict control to prevent the pandemic, human mobility, and demographic characteristics such as income. This finding reveals a new phenomenon that contrasts with the traditional understanding of the influence of wealth on the spread of epidemics. This paper enriches the understanding of the role of neighborhoods in the spread of the pandemic, and it has important public policy implications.