标题: Evolving urban allometric scaling law of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United Kingdom

作者: Xu, G (Xu, Gang); Zhang, SY (Zhang, Siyuan); Mcculley, E (Mcculley, Edwin); Wu, R (Wu, Ran); Li, XH (Li, Xinhu); Jiao, LM (Jiao, Limin)

来源出版物: JOURNAL OF URBAN MANAGEMENT 卷: 13 期: 2 页: 308-315 DOI: 10.1016/j.jum.2024.02.004 Early Access Date: MAY 2024 Published Date: 2024 JUN

摘要: Infectious diseases depend on intensified social intercourse within large cities, resulting in a superlinear allometric scaling law with city size. But how this scaling relationship changes throughout an evolving pandemic is seldom studied and remains unclear. Here, we investigate allometric scaling laws between cases/deaths and city size and their temporal evolution using daily COVID19 cases/deaths of cities in the United Kingdom from March 2020 to May 2022. Results indicate that cases exhibit a super-linear scaling pattern with city size, revealing higher morbidity in large cities. Temporally, scaling exponents stabilized at around 1.25 after a rapid increase from less than one and then decreased to one. Scaling exponents of COVID-19 deaths exhibited a comparable trend to cases but with a lag in time and a weaker super-linear relationship. Scaling exponents increased first, then stabilized, and then decreased during each wave. Temporal variations of scaling exponents reveal the spatial diffusion of infectious diseases from large to small cities, whose mechanism needs further exploration.

作者关键词: Complex urban system; Allometric scaling law; Infectious diseases; COVID-19; Urban health

地址: [Xu, Gang; Zhang, Siyuan; Jiao, Limin] Wuhan Univ, Sch Resource & Environm Sci, Wuhan 430079, Peoples R China.

[Xu, Gang] Univ Hong Kong, Fac Architecture, Future Urban & Sustainable Environm FUSE Lab, Hong Kong 999077, Peoples R China.

[Mcculley, Edwin] Drexel Univ, Dornsife Sch Publ Hlth, Urban Hlth Collaborat, 3600 Market St 7th Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA.

[Wu, Ran] Hubei Prov Ctr Dis Control & Prevent, Wuhan 430079, Peoples R China.

[Li, Xinhu] Hangzhou City Univ, Sch Spatial Planning & Design, Hangzhou 310015, Peoples R China.

通讯作者地址: Xu, G; Jiao, LM (通讯作者)，Wuhan Univ, Sch Resource & Environm Sci, Wuhan 430079, Peoples R China.

电子邮件地址: xugang@whu.edu.cn

影响因子：3.9