School location triggers inequitable impact of COVID-19: study

Western team discovered schools in marginalized areas in Ontario were more negatively affected by the pandemic than other areas. COVID-19 infections in Ontario are disproportionately concentrated in areas with lower-income and racialized groups. A new study shows the devastating impact that inequity poses for schools, students and families in those communities. A research team led by Western University global education expert Prachi Srivastava found socio-economic characteristics, like ethnic concentration, residential instability and basic need deprivation of the geographic location of schools were more strongly associated with the number of elementary school student infections than individual school characteristics. -To borrow a phrase from real estate: It-s about location, location, location,- said Srivastava. -Where schools were located really mattered, far more than the socio-economic characteristics of individual school populations. The study, co-authored by Western psychologists Daniel Ansari and Nathan Lau and Dr. Nisha Thampi from CHEO, a pediatric health-care and research centre in Ottawa, is available now in pre-print via medRxiv .