The persistence of behavioral disparities post-pandemic: Insights from activity time series data

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated deep-rooted socioeconomic disparities, however there is a gap in our understanding of the persistence and magnitudes of these disparities over time. In efforts to understand how diverse populations adapted their behavior throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we leveraged large-scale mobile phone data at the census tract level between January 2020 – April 2022 to analyze temporal patterns in trips made to specific destination types. We employ time series clustering to the origin-destination trip data, which consistently identifies two distinct population groups that vary in both their respective behaviors and sociodemographic profiles. Furthermore, each group’s behavioral patterns in response to the local infection dynamics were observed to change over time, indicating a shift in relative risk-responsive behavior across groups. Specifically, in the early stages of COVID-19, the more socio-economically (SES) vulnerable population group was more active, likely capturing this group’s role in essential, lower-wage, in-person jobs and higher levels of social engagement, in contrast to the less vulnerable group, which was more likely to work from home and socially isolate. However, after restrictions lifted and vaccines became widely available, this trend reversed - the more SES vulnerable groups appear less active, especially in times of increased infection activity (e.g., new variant-driven waves), indicating less tolerance towards infection risk. The findings were consistent across all ten states included in the study. This study is the first to characterize and quantify evolving behavioral disparities through population-level activity patterns as captured through mobile phone data.