County-level exposures to greenness and associations with COVID-19 incidence and mortality in the United States.

ABSTRACT:

Background

COVID-19 is an infectious disease that has killed more than 555,000 people in the US. During a time of social distancing measures and increasing social isolation, green spaces may be a crucial factor to maintain a physically and socially active lifestyle while not increasing risk of infection.

Objectives

We evaluated whether greenness was related to COVID-19 incidence and mortality in the US.

Methods

We downloaded data on COVID-19 cases and deaths for each US county up through June 7, 2020, from Johns Hopkins University, Center for Systems Science and Engineering Coronavirus Resource Center. We used April-May 2020 Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data, to represent the greenness exposure during the initial COVID-19 outbreak in the US. We fitted

SUBMITTER: Klompmaker JO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8123933 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature