A new Boston University School of Public Health study of the first four months of America’s coronavirus epidemic, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, shows that physical distancing (also called “social distancing”) policies had little effect on lower income people still needing to leave their homes to go to work – but does show them staying home when they could.
“If lower-income people were simply ignoring the trend towards physical distancing, we would have expected them to continue going to places like supermarkets, liquor stores, and parks at the same rates as before. Instead, their visits dropped at almost the same rates as the very highest-income group,” says study lead author Dr Jonathan Jay, assistant professor of community health sciences at BUSPH.
“This indicates that lower income people were just as aware and motivated as higher-income people to protect themselves from COVID-19, but simply couldn’t stay home as much because they needed to go to work,” he says. [Read more…] about Physical distancing policies ‘not enough to protect lower-income people’
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