Study shows housing key factor in better outcomes in COVID hot spots

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This article was published 17/02/2022 (1338 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A recent study of COVID-19 hot spots in metropolitan areas across Canada shows Winnipeg fared better than others thanks in part to lower-density housing.

A cross-sectional study looking at social determinants of health and COVID-19 clusters in 16 Canadian cities was published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

University of Manitoba professor and director of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy Dr. Alan Katz contributed to the study, which examined confirmed COVID-19 cases in Winnipeg between January 2020 and February 2021.

While COVID-19 hot spots were correlated with social determinants of health, such as occupation, income, housing and structural racism in all communities, the study also found Winnipeg had a lower concentration of COVID-19 hot spots because of how people live and work in the city, Katz said.

“We were a little bit surprised with the magnitude of the difference between Winnipeg and other cities,” he said in a release. “But it makes sense when you look at how people live. In other big cities, more people are living in high-rise buildings and in higher-density areas.

“We don’t have those same high-density areas in Winnipeg in the same way,” Katz said. “We have areas where people live with significant challenges and poverty, but they’re not living in the high-density conditions which seems to be a key risk factor.”

The study also found visible minority status was the social determinant of health that was important across all cities and people experiencing greater socioeconomic challenges had higher rates of infection and worse outcomes.

Residents of larger cities who couldn’t work from home or were not eligible for sick leave seemed to live in areas that became significant hot spots. However, Winnipeg did not appear to have the same localized issues, Katz said.

The study’s authors said governments and public health units must deploy “city-specific” supports, such as vaccination and testing outreach with “wrap-around support” for quarantine and isolation in communities at disproportionate risk.

“It’s about recognizing that pandemics in particular don’t affect everybody equally,” Katz said. “We need to target our interventions to those who are at most risk and, in this case, it’s very clear that the most at risk people are the people who live with higher socioeconomic challenges.”