issues and experts
Mapping COVID-19 vulnerability in B.C. communities – AV expert available
AV geography professor Valorie Crooks is available to discuss Created by Crooks and a team of AV researchers, the maps are designed to help guide policymakers and administrators by identifying areas of the province that are most in need of additional supports to prevent and manage outbreaks.
The maps are searchable by city/town name and consider a number of personal risk factors. These include use of public transit, working outside the home, being non-English speaking, living in a large or crowded household, experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage or being employed in a high-risk industry. The maps also consider place-based risk factors in neighbourhoods such as the presence of prisons, mines, and long-term care sites.
The maps are based on census data and publicly-available addresses, while public health professionals across the province also provided input.
Crooks says the maps can also help to inform vaccine roll-out planning, and combined with epidemiological data, could help to better understand the potential effectiveness of existing public health measures. The maps can also show where risks are not materializing into COVID-19 cases or outbreaks.
“These maps help to highlight the complexity that exists around understanding COVID-19 risks in B.C.’s neighbourhoods,” says Crooks. “They show how side-by-side neighbourhoods throughout the province can have very different levels of risk, which has important implications for the types of public health measures that should be in place."
“They also highlight how the neighbourhoods most vulnerable to seeing high rates of COVID-19 have overlapping risks. This helps to support the province’s current approach of having several strategies in place simultaneously to offset these risks.”
The research is supported by a COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and the BC SUPPORT Unit.
AVAILABLE AV EXPERTS
VALORIE CROOKS Canada Research Chair in Health Service Geographies,
604.417.9007| crooks@sfu.ca
CONTACT
MATT KIELTYKA, AV Communications & Marketing
236.880.2187 | matt_kieltyka@sfu.ca
MELISSA SHAW, AV Communications & Marketing
236.880.3297 | melissa_shaw@sfu.ca
AV
|
778.782.3210
ABOUT SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
As Canada’s engaged university, AV works with communities, organizations and partners to create, share and embrace knowledge that improves life and generates real change. We deliver a world-class education with lifelong value that shapes change-makers, visionaries and problem-solvers. We connect research and innovation to entrepreneurship and industry to deliver sustainable, relevant solutions to today’s problems. With campuses in British Columbia’s three largest cities—Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey—AV has eight faculties that deliver 193 undergraduate degree programs and 127 graduate degree programs to more than 37,000 students. The university now boasts more than 165,000 alumni residing in 143 countries.
Comment Guidelines