Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jun:69:102859.
doi: 10.1016/j.scs.2021.102859. Epub 2021 Mar 19.

The influence of urban, socio-economic, and eco-environmental aspects on COVID-19 cases, deaths and mortality: A multi-city case in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil

Jennifer Viezzer  1 , Daniela Biondi  1
Affiliations

The influence of urban, socio-economic, and eco-environmental aspects on COVID-19 cases, deaths and mortality: A multi-city case in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil

Jennifer Viezzer et al. Sustain Cities Soc. 2021 Jun.

Abstract

Urban, socio-economic and eco-environmental influences on people's health are widely studied and well-known. Their relation to COVID-19, however, is still a novel research topic. Thus, we investigated if COVID-19 parameters are higher in cities with higher urbanization, worst socio-economic conditions, and less vegetation cover, considering 3,052 municipalities in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. Brazil is the second country most affected by COVID-19, and the Atlantic Forest is its most urbanized, populous, and deforested region. Indexes were created through multivariate principal components analysis using secondary official data: population, demographic density, absolute built area, and relative built area as urbanization parameters; average per capita income, relative people vulnerable to poverty, illiteracy rate of the population aged 18 or over, and human development index (HDI) as socio-economic parameters; and absolute and relative vegetation cover, absolute and relative forest cover as eco-environmental parameters. These indexes were correlated with absolute and relative confirmed COVID-19 cases, absolute and relative confirmed deaths, and mortality rate via Spearman's and Kendall's coefficients. Strong correlations (>0.50) were found between COVID-19 and urbanization. Socio-economic and eco-environmental aspects, although weaker predictors of COVID-19, presented meaningful relations with the health parameters. This study contributes to the evidence regarding COVID-19 incidence in the Brazilian population.

Keywords: COVID-19 incidence; Coronavirus; Ecosystem services; Nature’s contribution to people; Urban forest; Vegetation cover.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Location of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Methodological procedures.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abdi H., Williams L.J. Principal component analysis. WIREs Computational Statistics. 2010;2(4):433–459. doi: 10.1002/wics.101. - DOI
    1. Aerts R., Honnay O., Nieuwenhuyse A.V. Biodiversity and human health: Mechanisms and evidence of the positive health effects of diversity in nature and green spaces. British Medical Bulletin. 2018;127(1):5–22. doi: 10.1093/bmb/ldy021. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Arantes B.L., Mauad T., da Silva Filho D.F. Urban forests, air quality and health: A systematic review. International Forestry Review. 2019;21(2):167–181. doi: 10.1505/146554819826606559. - DOI
    1. Astell-Burt T., Feng X. Association of urban green space with mental health and general health among adults in Australia. Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open. 2019;2 doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.8209. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Auler A.C., Cássaro F.A.M., da Silva V.O., Pires L.F. Evidence that high temperatures and intermediate relative humidity might favor the spread of COVID-19 in tropical climate: A case study for the most affected Brazilian cities. The Science of the Total Environment. 2020;729 doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139090. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources