Neighborhood-Level Public Facilities and COVID-19 Transmission: A Nationwide Geospatial Study In China

Individual-level studies on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have proliferated; however, research on neighborhood-level factors associated with COVID-19 is limited. We gathered the geographic data of all publically released COVID-19 cases in China and used a case-control (1:4 ratio) design to investigate the association between having COVID-19 cases in a neighborhood and number and types of public facilities nearby. Having more restaurants, shopping centers, hotels, living facilities, recreational facilities, public transits, educational institutions, and health service facilities was associated with significantly higher odds of having COVID-19 cases in a neighborhood. The associations for restaurants, hotels, reactional and education facilities were more pronounced in cities with fewer than six million people than those in larger cities. Our results have implications for designing targeted prevention strategies at the neighborhood level to reduce the burden of COVID-19.