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Review of Associations between Built Environment Characteristics and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection Risk.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Wang, Jingjing 
Wu, Xueying 
Wang, Ruoyu 
He, Dongsheng 

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has stimulated intensive research interest in its transmission pathways and infection factors, e.g., socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, climatology, baseline health conditions or pre-existing diseases, and government policies. Meanwhile, some empirical studies suggested that built environment attributes may be associated with the transmission mechanism and infection risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, no review has been conducted to explore the effect of built environment characteristics on the infection risk. This research gap prevents government officials and urban planners from creating effective urban design guidelines to contain SARS-CoV-2 infections and face future pandemic challenges. This review summarizes evidence from 25 empirical studies and provides an overview of the effect of built environment on SARS-CoV-2 infection risk. Virus infection risk was positively associated with the density of commercial facilities, roads, and schools and with public transit accessibility, whereas it was negatively associated with the availability of green spaces. This review recommends several directions for future studies, namely using longitudinal research design and individual-level data, considering multilevel factors and extending to diversified geographic areas.

Description

Keywords

COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, built environment, Built Environment, COVID-19, Humans, Pandemics, SARS-CoV-2, Schools

Journal Title

Int J Environ Res Public Health

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1661-7827
1660-4601

Volume Title

18

Publisher

MDPI AG
Sponsorship
National Natural Science Foundation of China (51778552)
the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong SAR (CityU11207520)