Inferring Mobility Reductions from COVID-19 Disease Spread along the Urban-Rural Gradient

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Paltra, Sydney, Dehning, Jonas, Priesemann, Viola, Nagel, Kai
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Paltra, Sydney
Dehning, Jonas
Priesemann, Viola
Nagel, Kai
author_facet Paltra, Sydney
Dehning, Jonas
Priesemann, Viola
Nagel, Kai
contents The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped human mobility through policy interventions and voluntary behavioral changes. Mobility adaptions helped mitigate pandemic spread, however our knowledge which environmental, social, and demographic factors helped mobility reduction and pandemic mitigation is patchy. We introduce a Bayesian hierarchical model to quantify heterogeneity in mobility responses across time and space in Germany's 400 districts using anonymized mobile phone data. Decomposing mobility into a disease-responsive component and disease-independent factors (temperature, school vacations, public holidays) allows us to quantify the impact of each factor. We find significant differences in reaction to disease spread along the urban-rural gradient, with large cities reducing mobility most strongly. Employment sectors further help explain variance in reaction strength during the first wave, while political variables gain significance during the second wave. However, reduced mobility only partially translates to lower peak incidence, indicating the influence of other hidden factors. Our results identify key drivers of mobility reductions and demonstrate that mobility behavior can serve as an operational proxy for population response.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_25424
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Inferring Mobility Reductions from COVID-19 Disease Spread along the Urban-Rural Gradient
Paltra, Sydney
Dehning, Jonas
Priesemann, Viola
Nagel, Kai
Applications
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped human mobility through policy interventions and voluntary behavioral changes. Mobility adaptions helped mitigate pandemic spread, however our knowledge which environmental, social, and demographic factors helped mobility reduction and pandemic mitigation is patchy. We introduce a Bayesian hierarchical model to quantify heterogeneity in mobility responses across time and space in Germany's 400 districts using anonymized mobile phone data. Decomposing mobility into a disease-responsive component and disease-independent factors (temperature, school vacations, public holidays) allows us to quantify the impact of each factor. We find significant differences in reaction to disease spread along the urban-rural gradient, with large cities reducing mobility most strongly. Employment sectors further help explain variance in reaction strength during the first wave, while political variables gain significance during the second wave. However, reduced mobility only partially translates to lower peak incidence, indicating the influence of other hidden factors. Our results identify key drivers of mobility reductions and demonstrate that mobility behavior can serve as an operational proxy for population response.
title Inferring Mobility Reductions from COVID-19 Disease Spread along the Urban-Rural Gradient
topic Applications
Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.25424