Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, both government-mandated lockdowns and discretionary changes in behaviour combined to produce dramatic and abrupt changes to human mobility patterns. To understand the socioeconomic determinants of intervention compliance and discretionary behavioural responses to epide...
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The Royal Society
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Royal Society Open Science |
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| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.241463 |
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| author | Pratyush Kollepara Subhrasankha Dey Martin Tomko Erika Martino Rebecca Bentley Michele Tizzoni Nicholas Geard Cameron Zachreson |
| author_facet | Pratyush Kollepara Subhrasankha Dey Martin Tomko Erika Martino Rebecca Bentley Michele Tizzoni Nicholas Geard Cameron Zachreson |
| author_sort | Pratyush Kollepara |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | During the COVID-19 pandemic, both government-mandated lockdowns and discretionary changes in behaviour combined to produce dramatic and abrupt changes to human mobility patterns. To understand the socioeconomic determinants of intervention compliance and discretionary behavioural responses to epidemic threats, we investigate whether changes in human mobility showed a systematic variation by socioeconomic status during two distinct periods of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. We analyse mobility data from two major urban centres and compare the trends during mandated stay-at-home policies and after the full relaxation of nonpharmaceutical interventions, which coincided with a large surge of COVID-19 cases. We analyse data aggregated from de-identified global positioning system trajectories, collated from providers of mobile phone applications and aggregated to small spatial regions. Our results demonstrate systematic decreases in mobility relative to the pre-pandemic baseline with the index of education and occupation, for both pandemic periods. On the other hand, the index of economic resources was not correlated with mobility changes. This result contrasts with observations from other national contexts, where reductions in mobility typically increased strongly with indicators of wealth. Our analysis suggests that economic support policies in place during the initial period of stay-at-home orders in Australia facilitated broad reductions in mobility across the economic spectrum. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-db5262a2212a4bc994f37ff6c64a6865 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-db5262a2212a4bc994f37ff6c64a68652025-01-15T00:06:00ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032025-01-0112110.1098/rsos.241463Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemicPratyush Kollepara0Subhrasankha Dey1Martin Tomko2Erika Martino3Rebecca Bentley4Michele Tizzoni5Nicholas Geard6Cameron Zachreson7School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, AustraliaDepartment of Built Environment, Aalto University, Espoo, FinlandDepartment of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, AustraliaCentre for Health Policy, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, AustraliaCentre of Research Excellence in Health Housing, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, AustraliaDepartment of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Trento, ItalySchool of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, AustraliaSchool of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, AustraliaDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, both government-mandated lockdowns and discretionary changes in behaviour combined to produce dramatic and abrupt changes to human mobility patterns. To understand the socioeconomic determinants of intervention compliance and discretionary behavioural responses to epidemic threats, we investigate whether changes in human mobility showed a systematic variation by socioeconomic status during two distinct periods of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. We analyse mobility data from two major urban centres and compare the trends during mandated stay-at-home policies and after the full relaxation of nonpharmaceutical interventions, which coincided with a large surge of COVID-19 cases. We analyse data aggregated from de-identified global positioning system trajectories, collated from providers of mobile phone applications and aggregated to small spatial regions. Our results demonstrate systematic decreases in mobility relative to the pre-pandemic baseline with the index of education and occupation, for both pandemic periods. On the other hand, the index of economic resources was not correlated with mobility changes. This result contrasts with observations from other national contexts, where reductions in mobility typically increased strongly with indicators of wealth. Our analysis suggests that economic support policies in place during the initial period of stay-at-home orders in Australia facilitated broad reductions in mobility across the economic spectrum.https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.241463COVID-19nonpharmaceutical interventionsmobility databehaviour changesocioeconomic |
| spellingShingle | Pratyush Kollepara Subhrasankha Dey Martin Tomko Erika Martino Rebecca Bentley Michele Tizzoni Nicholas Geard Cameron Zachreson Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic Royal Society Open Science COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions mobility data behaviour change socioeconomic |
| title | Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic |
| title_full | Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic |
| title_fullStr | Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic |
| title_full_unstemmed | Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic |
| title_short | Socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two Australian cities during transitional periods of the COVID-19 pandemic |
| title_sort | socioeconomic correlates of urban mobility trends in two australian cities during transitional periods of the covid 19 pandemic |
| topic | COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions mobility data behaviour change socioeconomic |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.241463 |
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