Development Economics Group, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
NADEL - Center for Development and Cooperation, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
Nat Commun. 2022 Jun 14;13(1):3355. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30812-8.
To identify areas at highest risk of infectious disease transmission in Africa, we develop a physical distancing index (PDI) based on the share of households without access to private toilets, water, space, transportation, and communication technology and weight it with population density. Our results highlight that in addition to improving health systems, countries across Africa, especially in the western part of Africa, need to address the lack of essential domestic infrastructure. Missing infrastructure prevents societies from limiting the spread of communicable diseases by undermining the effectiveness of governmental regulations on physical distancing. We also provide high-resolution risk maps that show which regions are most limited in protecting themselves. We find considerable spatial heterogeneity of the PDI within countries and show that it is highly correlated with detected COVID-19 cases. Governments could pay specific attention to these areas to target limited resources more precisely to prevent disease transmission.
为了确定非洲传染病传播风险最高的地区，我们开发了一个基于无法获得私人厕所、水、空间、交通和通信技术的家庭比例的物理距离指数（PDI），并根据人口密度对其进行加权。我们的研究结果表明，除了改善卫生系统外，非洲各国，尤其是非洲西部的国家，需要解决基本国内基础设施缺乏的问题。基础设施的缺失通过削弱政府关于物理距离的规定的有效性，阻碍了社会限制传染病传播。我们还提供了高分辨率的风险图，显示了哪些地区自我保护能力最弱。我们发现各国内部的 PDI 存在相当大的空间异质性，并表明它与已检测到的 COVID-19 病例高度相关。政府可以特别关注这些地区，以便更准确地将有限的资源用于预防疾病传播。
