The study was published in the scientific journal The Lancet and aimed to analyze the effects of changes in mobility during the health emergency in Latin American cities.
The study entitled: "The effect of population mobility on the incidence of COVID-19 in 314 Latin American cities: a longitudinal ecological study with mobile phone location data", was published in August of this year and will appear in the edition November of The Lancet.
The analysis aimed to examine the longitudinal relationships between population mobility and the incidence of COVID-19 in Latin American cities. For this, mobile phone location data, confined cases of COVID-19 per day, as well as urban and social characteristics of the cities, were compiled to analyze the mobility and incidence of COVID-19. The data used correspond to cities with more than 100 thousand inhabitants in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico from March to August 2020.
The United Nations Development Program in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNDP), and Grandata, an American advanced research company specialized in identifying market trends, which formed a collaboration alliance in April 2020 during the first months of the pandemic, were in charge of providing mobile phone-based mobility data for this study.
"We include 1,031 suburban areas, which represent 314 Latin American cities, in Argentina (107 suburban areas), Brazil (416), Colombia (82), Guatemala (20), and Mexico (406)," the study explains.
The study sought to verify that high levels of international and intercity mobility cause serious outbreaks of COVID-19. This specific study provided evidence within Latin America, and provided evidence of the importance of social distancing to prevent the spread of the virus.
“Suburban areas in every country had sharp reductions in mobility in March 2020, even before federal restrictions began. In Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, mobility declines persisted in the following months, with relatively narrow within-country variability. In contrast, in Brazil and Guatemala, daily mobility gradually returned to rates similar to baseline mobility, with great variability within the country,” the authors noted in the study results.
The authors observed a positive association between changes in population mobility in suburban areas and the incidence of COVID-19 among their residents.
"This study has several limitations. Confirmed cases of COVID-19 were obtained directly from official government sources and are likely to be underreported, which may vary depending on access to testing and care. However, we adjusted for suburban area education, which has been shown to be associated with access to testing.
Get to know the results of the study in detail by entering the following link: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(21)00174-6/fulltext
