Impact of Mitigation Policies and Socioeconomic Position on SARS-CoV-2 Incidence in Italian Provinces

Luca Dei Bardi , University of Helsinki
Giulia Cesaroni, Department of Epidemiology of the Lazio Region
Nera Agabiti, Department of Epidemiology of the Lazio Region

Background: It is known from the literature that the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated pre-existent socioeconomic inequalities as lower strata of socioeconomic position faced more financial adversities and were more likely to have a higher incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Although, most of the studies are focused on the first outbreak of the pandemic. Since November 2020, when facing the second outbreak, Italy implemented a three-tier restriction system based on different levels of risk at the regional level (NUTS-2). This study has the main goal to estimate the impact of mitigation policies on SARS-CoV-2 weekly incidence in Italian provinces (NUTS-3) characterized by different levels of socioeconomic position from 24th February 2020 to 19th September 2021. Data: Weekly-incidence of positives to SARS-CoV-2 (Civil Protection Department), 2019 income tax data (Ministry of Economy and Finance), mobility data (Google), population density and rural/non-rural classification (Italian National Institute of Statistics). Methods: Ecological analysis. Interrupted time-series model and negative binomial regression with random effects (cluster = province). Expected Findings: We expect different impacts of implemented mitigation policies on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in provinces with different socioeconomic levels, with more deprived provinces having milder restrictions’ effects on the incidence of SARS-CoV-2, other variables being equal. Expectations come from the assumption that lower socioeconomic provinces will be more prone to essential works, and hence, with fewer opportunities to respect restrictive measures.

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe