Association Between Social Distancing Compliance and Public Place Crowding During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-Sectional Observational Study Using Computer Vision to Analyze Surveillance Footage
The direct positive relationship between crowding and distancing violations suggests that potential transmission encounters can be identified by simply counting the number of people present in a location. Our findings thus provide a reliable and scalable proxy measure of distancing noncompliance that offers epidemiologists a tool to easily incorporate real-life behavior into predictive models of airborne contagious diseases. Furthermore, our results highlight the need for scholars and public health agencies to consider the situational factors influencing social distancing violations, especially those related to crowding in public settings.
Authors
- Peter Ejbye‐Ernst (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4598-7235)
- Lasse Suonperä Liebst (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1062-2447)
- Cees G. M. Snoek (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9092-1556)
- Wim Bernasco (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3385-0883)
- D.C. Koelma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2207-5682)
- Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1630-774X)
- Thomas van der Veen
- Nigel van Herwijnen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6690-6177)
Institutions
- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ES)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- University of Milan (IT)
- University College Copenhagen (DK)
- Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NL)
- IT University of Copenhagen (DK)
- University of Amsterdam (NL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
- Published
- 2025-03-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.2196/50929
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Crime Patterns and Interventions
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.20
Funders
- ZonMw