ArticlePloS one2026
Essential work, unequal places: Neighborhood characteristics of the essential workforce in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in PloS one, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionAt the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 55 million U.S. workers continued providing "essential" services crucial to public health, safety, and economic stability, even as large segments of the workforce sheltered at home. Despite the central role these workers played in safeguarding the economy and the greater American public, little is known about the neighborhood environments in which essential workers lived and how well these communities were equipped to support the health and well-being of essential workers during the pandemic. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to describe the social and physical characteristics of U.S. neighborhoods with varying concentrations of essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
methodsWe linked data from the National Neighborhood Data Archive (NaNDA) with American Community Survey (ACS) 2016-2020 estimates to identify the residential concentration of essential workers across U.S. census tracts. Neighborhoods were categorized into quintiles based on the proportion of essential workers. We examined access to key neighborhood resources relevant to pandemic resilience, including food outlets, health care facilities, and parks/green space. We summarized characteristics using descriptive statistics and heatmaps. Differences between the highest (Q5) and lowest (Q1) quintiles were assessed using Welch's two-sample t-tests.
resultsNeighborhoods with higher concentrations of essential workers had greater access to grocery stores but significantly less access to health care facilities and parks/green space compared with neighborhoods with fewer essential workers. These disparities highlight uneven community support for those workers required to continue in-person work during a national public health emergency.
conclusionUsing nationwide neighborhood and census-tract data, we found that neighborhoods with a high proportion of essential workers generally had better access to food stores but substantially lower access to health care and parks/green space. Recognizing these uneven community conditions is critical for strengthening preparedness efforts and ensuring that neighborhoods are better equipped to support the essential workforce during future disasters and public health crises.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.