Table 1.

Brief literature review on empirical studies investigating the relationship between COVID-19 and urban environment

Authors	Study area	Focus	Summary
Andersen et al. (2021)	All counties and county-equivalents in the USA	Geographic hotspots and community drivers associated with spatial patterns of COVID-19 transmission	The factors associated with community-level vulnerability included age, disability, language, race, occupation, and urban status
Dong et al. (2020)	Wuhan, China	Connectivity and public green space (PGS) use	There is no high correlation between PGS use and its connectivity
Louis-Jean et al. (2020)	Selected counties or county-equivalents, and cities in the USA	Racial Disparities	This communication provides a brief overview of the health inequalities resulting in African Americans dying disproportionately during the COVID-19 pandemic
McPhearson et al. (2020)	New York City, USA	Spatial and Social Distributions of the first wave of COVID-19 and social vulnerability indicators	Social Vulnerability indicators (e.g., race, language, income, etc.) drive spatial patterns in the prevalence of COVID-19 testing, confirmed cases, death rates, and severity
Pan et al. (2021)	All urban boroughs of London	Public green space (PGS) accessibility and high choice measures	The results indicate higher transmission possibility without characterizing the infrastructure and social conditions
Tribby and Hartmann (2021)	New York City, USA	Built environment characteristics and COVID-19 cases	Positive associations between COVID-19 cases and % black, Hispanic population, % population over 65
Lu et al. (2021)	135 most urbanized counties across the United States	Relationship between green spaces and racial disparity to COVID-19 at the county level	The disparity is significantly smaller in areas with a higher ratio of green spaces at the county level
Zelner et al. (2020)	Michigan, USA	Racial Disparities	Presents racial disparity trends