ReviewBuilding and environment2021
Crowding has consequences: Prevention and management of COVID-19 in informal urban settlements.
Review in Building and environment, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers.
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Who cites it
42 citing papers in PubMed.
- A sustainable house design to improve child health in rural Africa: a cluster-randomized controlled trial.Nature medicine · 2026Trial
- Beyond COVID-19: Behavioral Drivers of Pandemic Prevention in Ghana's Informal Urban Settlements.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2026Article
- Harnessing Socio-Spatial Dynamics for Pandemic Resilience: Evidence from Kozhikode, India.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Article
- Acute Respiratory Tract Infections in Pediatric Populations of Slum Areas: Navigating Challenges and Dynamics of Immune Responses.Current pediatric reviews · 2025Review
- Does viral circulation in slums have a global impact? The lesson learned from SARS-CoV-2 circulation inFrontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Effect of Regional Housing Hardship on Spatial Variation in Cancer Incidence: Does Housing Stress Increase Cancer Incidence?GeoHealth · 2024Article
- Age, gender and household infrastructural inequality in COVID-19: Contextual analysis of Mamelodi.South African family practice : official journal of the South African Academy of Family Practice/Primary Care · 2024Article
- Assessing the mental health of slum dwellers: an ordinal logistic approach.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2024Article
- Risk factors for COVID-19 in-hospital mortality in Argentina: A competing risk survival analysis.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Multi-scale risk assessment and mitigations comparison for COVID-19 in urban public transport: A combined field measurement and modeling approach.Building and environment · 2023Article
- A cross-sectional survey of climate and COVID-19 crises in young people in Indian slums: context, psychological responses, and agency.The Lancet regional health. Southeast Asia · 2023Article
- Biomimetic method of emergency life channel urban planning in Wuhan using slime mold networks.Heliyon · 2023Article
- COVID-19-related hospital admission in spouses of partners in at-risk occupations.Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health · 2023Article
- The impact of urban spatial environment on COVID-19: a case study in Beijing.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Epidemic dynamics in census-calibrated modular contact network.Network modeling and analysis in health informatics and bioinformatics · 2023Article
- Do the determinants of COVID-19 transmission differ by epidemic wave? Evidence from U.S. counties.Cities (London, England) · 2022Article
- Squatting behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of the informal settlement "Los Hornos" in Buenos Aires.Habitat international · 2022Article
- High-resolution estimates of social distancing feasibility, mapped for urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa.Scientific data · 2022Article
- Community resilience to pandemics: An assessment framework developed based on the review of COVID-19 literature.International journal of disaster risk reduction : IJDRR · 2022Review
- Mapping urban physical distancing constraints, sub-Saharan Africa: a case study from Kenya.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
COVID-19 spreads via aerosols, droplets, fomites and faeces. The built environment that facilitates crowding increases exposure and hence transmission of COVID-19 as evidenced by outbreaks in both cool-dry and hot-humid climates, such as in the US prison system and dormitories in Singapore, respectively. This paper explores how the built environment influences crowding and COVID-19 transmission, focusing on informal urban settlements (slums). We propose policy and practice changes that could reduce COVID-19 transmission. There are several issues on how COVID-19 affects informal urban settlements. Slum populations tend to be younger than the overall population. Lower numbers of older people lessen the morbidity and mortality of the pandemic in slum areas. Second, many slum populations are highly mobile. By returning to their ancestral villages residents can avoid the risks of overcrowding and reduce the population density in a given area but may spread COVID-19 to other areas. Third, detection and registration of COVID-19 cases depends on patients presenting to health care providers. If the risk of visiting a health care centre outweighs the potential benefits patients may prefer not to seek treatment. The control and prevention of COVID-19 in informal urban settlements starts with organizing community infrastructure for diagnosis and treatment and assuring that basic needs (food, water, sanitation, health care and public transport) are met during quarantine. Next, community members at highest risk need to be identified and protected. Low-income, informal settlements need to be recognized as a reservoir and source for persistent transmission. Solutions to overcrowding must be developed for this and future pandemics. In view of the constant risk that slums present to the entire population decisive steps need to be taken to rehabilitate and improve informal settlements, while avoiding stigmatization.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.