IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i2p824-d723094.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Spatiotemporal Associations between Local Safety Level Index and COVID-19 Infection Risks across Capital Regions in South Korea

Author

Listed:
  • Youngbin Lym

    (Research Institute of Natural Sciences, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, Korea)

  • Hyobin Lym

    (Korea Rural Economic Institute, Naju-si 58321, Korea)

  • Keekwang Kim

    (Department of Biochemistry, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 34134, Korea)

  • Ki-Jung Kim

    (Department of Smart Car Engineering, Doowon Technical University, Anseong 10838, Korea)

Abstract

This study aims to provide an improved understanding of the local-level spatiotemporal evolution of COVID-19 spread across capital regions of South Korea during the second and third waves of the pandemic (August 2020~June 2021). To explain transmission, we rely upon the local safety level indices along with latent influences from the spatial alignment of municipalities and their serial (temporal) correlation. Utilizing a flexible hierarchical Bayesian model as an analytic operational framework, we exploit the modified BYM (BYM2) model with the Penalized Complexity (PC) priors to account for latent effects (unobserved heterogeneity). The outcome reveals that a municipality with higher population density is likely to have an elevated infection risk, whereas one with good preparedness for infectious disease tends to have a reduction in risk. Furthermore, we identify that including spatial and temporal correlations into the modeling framework significantly improves the performance and explanatory power, justifying our adoption of latent effects. Based on these findings, we present the dynamic evolution of COVID-19 across the Seoul Capital Area (SCA), which helps us verify unique patterns of disease spread as well as regions of elevated risk for further policy intervention and for supporting informed decision making for responding to infectious diseases.

Suggested Citation

  • Youngbin Lym & Hyobin Lym & Keekwang Kim & Ki-Jung Kim, 2022. "Spatiotemporal Associations between Local Safety Level Index and COVID-19 Infection Risks across Capital Regions in South Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(2), pages 1-16, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:2:p:824-:d:723094
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/2/824/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/2/824/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Geir-Arne Fuglstad & Daniel Simpson & Finn Lindgren & Håvard Rue, 2019. "Constructing Priors that Penalize the Complexity of Gaussian Random Fields," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 114(525), pages 445-452, January.
    2. Julian Besag & Jeremy York & Annie Mollié, 1991. "Bayesian image restoration, with two applications in spatial statistics," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 43(1), pages 1-20, March.
    3. David J. Spiegelhalter & Nicola G. Best & Bradley P. Carlin & Angelika Van Der Linde, 2002. "Bayesian measures of model complexity and fit," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 64(4), pages 583-639, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eibich, Peter & Ziebarth, Nicolas, 2014. "Examining the Structure of Spatial Health Effects in Germany Using Hierarchical Bayes Models," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 49, pages 305-320.
    2. Mayer Alvo & Jingrui Mu, 2023. "COVID-19 Data Analysis Using Bayesian Models and Nonparametric Geostatistical Models," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-13, March.
    3. Massimo Bilancia & Giacomo Demarinis, 2014. "Bayesian scanning of spatial disease rates with integrated nested Laplace approximation (INLA)," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 23(1), pages 71-94, March.
    4. Douglas R. M. Azevedo & Marcos O. Prates & Dipankar Bandyopadhyay, 2021. "MSPOCK: Alleviating Spatial Confounding in Multivariate Disease Mapping Models," Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics, Springer;The International Biometric Society;American Statistical Association, vol. 26(3), pages 464-491, September.
    5. Jonathan Wakefield & Taylor Okonek & Jon Pedersen, 2020. "Small Area Estimation for Disease Prevalence Mapping," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 88(2), pages 398-418, August.
    6. Francisca Corpas-Burgos & Miguel A. Martinez-Beneito, 2021. "An Autoregressive Disease Mapping Model for Spatio-Temporal Forecasting," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-17, February.
    7. Li Xu & Qingshan Jiang & David R. Lairson, 2019. "Spatio-Temporal Variation of Gender-Specific Hypertension Risk: Evidence from China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-26, November.
    8. Isabel Martínez-Pérez & Verónica González-Iglesias & Valentín Rodríguez Suárez & Ana Fernández-Somoano, 2021. "Spatial Distribution of Hospitalizations for Ischemic Heart Diseases in the Central Region of Asturias, Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(23), pages 1-10, November.
    9. F. Corpas-Burgos & P. Botella-Rocamora & M. A. Martinez-Beneito, 2019. "On the convenience of heteroscedasticity in highly multivariate disease mapping," TEST: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 28(4), pages 1229-1250, December.
    10. Alexandra Schmidt & Ajax Moreira & Steven Helfand & Thais Fonseca, 2009. "Spatial stochastic frontier models: accounting for unobserved local determinants of inefficiency," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 101-112, April.
    11. Maike Tahden & Juliane Manitz & Klaus Baumgardt & Gerhard Fell & Thomas Kneib & Guido Hegasy, 2016. "Epidemiological and Ecological Characterization of the EHEC O104:H4 Outbreak in Hamburg, Germany, 2011," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-19, October.
    12. Marc Marí-Dell’Olmo & Miguel Ángel Martínez-Beneito, 2015. "A Multilevel Regression Model for Geographical Studies in Sets of Non-Adjacent Cities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(8), pages 1-12, August.
    13. Peter Congdon, 2011. "The Spatial Pattern of Suicide in the US in Relation to Deprivation, Fragmentation and Rurality," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(10), pages 2101-2122, August.
    14. Shadi Rahimzadeh & Beata Burczynska & Alireza Ahmadvand & Ali Sheidaei & Sara Khademioureh & Forough Pazhuheian & Sahar Saeedi Moghaddam & James Bentham & Farshad Farzadfar & Mariachiara Di Cesare, 2021. "Geographical and socioeconomic inequalities in female breast cancer incidence and mortality in Iran: A Bayesian spatial analysis of registry data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-16, March.
    15. Volker Schmid & Leonhard Held, 2004. "Bayesian Extrapolation of Space–Time Trends in Cancer Registry Data," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 60(4), pages 1034-1042, December.
    16. Darren J. Mayne & Geoffrey G. Morgan & Bin B. Jalaludin & Adrian E. Bauman, 2018. "Does Walkability Contribute to Geographic Variation in Psychosocial Distress? A Spatial Analysis of 91,142 Members of the 45 and Up Study in Sydney, Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-24, February.
    17. Marcus L. Nascimento & Kelly C. M. Gonçalves & Mario Jorge Mendonça, 2023. "Spatio-Temporal Instrumental Variables Regression with Missing Data: A Bayesian Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 62(1), pages 29-47, June.
    18. Corey Sparks & Joey Campbell, 2014. "An Application of Bayesian Methods to Small Area Poverty Rate Estimates," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(3), pages 455-477, June.
    19. Klein, Nadja & Herwartz, Helmut & Kneib, Thomas, 2020. "Modelling regional patterns of inefficiency: A Bayesian approach to geoadditive panel stochastic frontier analysis with an application to cereal production in England and Wales," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 214(2), pages 513-539.
    20. Luca Grassetti & Laura Rizzi, 2019. "The determinants of individual health care expenditures in the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia: evidence from a hierarchical spatial model estimation," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 987-1009, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:2:p:824-:d:723094. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.