Socioeconomic Disparities in the Effects of Pollution on Spread of COVID-19: Evidence from US Counties

Abstract

This paper explores disparities in the effect of pollution on confirmed cases of Covid-19 based on counties' socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Using data on all US counties on a daily basis over the year 2020 and applying a rich panel data fixed effect model, we document that: 1) there are discernible social and demographic disparities in the spread of Covid-19. Blacks, low educated, and poorer people are at higher risks of being infected by the new disease. 2) The criteria pollutants including Ozone, CO, PM10, and PM2.5 have the potential to accelerate the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. 3) The disadvantaged population is more vulnerable to the effects of pollution on the spread of coronavirus. Specifically, the effects of pollution on confirmed cases become larger for blacks, low educated, and counties with lower average wages in 2019.

RETRACTED: Income Shocks and Child Mortality Rates: Evidence from Fluctuations in Oil Prices

“…Another policy implication of these results is for closing the social gaps in health specifically during difficult times. For instance, Allen et al (2021) show that the effect of pollution on mortality due to the covid-19 pandemic is not uniformly distributed across different subgroups in a society. They show that the negative effects of pollution are more pronounced among blacks and poor people.…”

Racial and Socioeconomic Inequality on the Spread of Covid-19: Evidence from US Pollution across Counties

“…Applying a rich set of fixed effects that also controls for a linear county by time trend, we documented that: (1) there are discernible social and demographic disparities in the spread of Covid-19. Blacks, low educated, and poorer people are at higher risks of being infected by the new disease; (2) The criteria pollutants have the potential to accelerate the outbreak of the virus. Among others, these pollutants include Ozone, CO, PM10, and PM2.5; (3) The disadvantaged population is more vulnerable to the effects of pollution on the spread of coronavirus.…”

“…We aim at exploring the racial and demographic disparities of health effects of pollution in the case of the spread of Covid-19. We build our study on the established fact that pollution affects the spread of coronavirus (Al Huraimel et al 2020, Allen et al 2021, Contini, Costabile 2020, Zoran et al 2020.We explore whether this worsening effect of pollution is different among people with different socioeconomic status or not. The idea is that poor, low educated, and black population live in more polluted areas as these residential locations are usually cheaper.…”