Socioeconomic determinants of mobility responses during the first wave of COVID-19 in Italy: from provinces to neighbourhoods

As the second wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections is surging across Europe, it is crucial to identify the drivers of mobility responses to mitigation efforts during different restriction regimes, for planning interventions that are both economically and socially sustainable while effective in controlling the outbreak. Here, using anonymous and privacy enhanced cell phone data from Italy, we investigate the determinants of spatial variations of reductions in mobility and co-location in response to the adoption and the lift of restrictions, considering both provinces and city neighbourhoods. In large urban areas, our analysis uncovers the desertification of historic city centers, which persisted after the end of the lockdown. At the province level, the local structure of the labour market mainly explained the variations in mobility responses, together with other demographic factors, such as population’s age and sex composition. In the future, targeted interventions should take into account how the ability to comply with restrictions varies across geographic areas and socio-demographic groups. ### Competing Interest Statement MT reports consulting fees from GSK outside of the submitted work. ### Funding Statement EP, LG, CC, MT gratefully acknowledge the support of the Lagrange Project funded by CRT Foundation. PB acknowledges support from Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center. This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme - project EpiPose (No 101003688). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: The data used in this study were previously published at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-00575-2 All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes Anonymised mobility data used in this study, aggregated at the level of Italian provinces, are available at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5029499.v2. This research also relies on data that is publicly available from the Italian National Institute of Statistics. Data sources are reported in the main text.