Tribal Mobility and COVID-19: An Urban-Rural Analysis in New Mexico

Esther Showalter, Morgan Vigil-Hayes, Ellen Zegura, Rich Sutton, Elizabeth Belding

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Tribal communities have experienced disproportionately high infection and death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic [1, 8, 31]. In this work, we examine COVID-19 case growth in proximity to significant tribal presence by providing a novel quantification of human mobility patterns across tribal boundaries and between urban and rural regions at the geographical resolution of census block groups. We use New Mexico as a case study due to its severe case infection rates; however, our methodologies generalize to other states. Results show that tribal mobility is uniquely high relative to baseline in counties with significant case counts. Furthermore, mobility patterns in tribal regions correlate more highly than any other region with case growth patterns in the surrounding county 13-16 days later. Our initial results present a quantification scheme for the underlying differences in human mobility between tribal/non-tribal and rural/urban regions with the goal of informing public health policy that meets the differing needs of these communities.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationHotMobile 2021 - Proceedings of the 22nd International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages99-104
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781450383233
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 24 2021
Event22nd International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, HotMobile 2021 - Virtual, Online, United Kingdom
Duration: Feb 24 2021Feb 26 2021

Publication series

NameHotMobile 2021 - Proceedings of the 22nd International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications

Conference

Conference22nd International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, HotMobile 2021
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityVirtual, Online
Period2/24/212/26/21

Keywords

  • COVID-19
  • crowdsourced datasets
  • mobile device location
  • mobility
  • rural urban disparity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Science Applications

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