Approved Research
Relationship between socioeconomic and meteorological factors and the risk of COVID-19
Lay summary
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a public health emergency of international concern. It is important to identify the factors leading to a higher risk of COVID-19 infection. We have researched the relationship between COVID-19 infection and temperature, humidity, information of residence community, crowded places and published papers on it. The infection risk of COVID-19 is affected by many socioeconomic and meteorological factors jointly. The UK Biobank provides the socioeconomic and meteorological data including air pollution, noise pollution, traffic load, and traffic intensity and COVID-19 data we are interested in. We can use the data to analyze the risk factors of COVID-19 and their risk level. The results would provide a reference for decision making on targeted prevention and control measures.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread over the world and developed into a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on January 30, 2020. Some findings have proved the person-to-person transmission of the novel coronavirus and its infectivity during the incubation period, which is a big challenge for disease prevention and control. It greatly affects social and economic development as well as people's normal work and life. A lot of papers have studied the impact of some natural factors on the severity of COVID-19 such as temperature, relative humidity, absolute humidity, wind, and nitrogen dioxide (NO) levels. The spatial transmission of COVID-19 and its association with several socioeconomic factors were also investigated. We would like to take a step further to discover more possible risk sources based on the UK Biobank data.
The duration for this proposed project is 18 months. The findings will supply the authorities with useful guidance to identify possible risk sources of COVID-19, based on which targeted prevention and control strategies can be prioritized for people and areas exposed to high-risk factors. The spread of COVID-19 may be controlled in the stage of prevention and the impact could be minimized.