Visualizing the Geographic and Demographic Distribution of COVID-19

Abstract

Whereas African Americans are disproportionately among the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic’s sick and dead, less is known about whether some racial/ethnic groups are more likely to be affected in Canada. In this data visualization, the authors address two issues limiting understanding of the spatial and demographic distribution of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada: (1) COVID-19 infection and death counts are collected at a very high level of geographic aggregation, and (2) these counts are not tallied by sociodemographic group, including race/ethnicity. The authors use a bivariate choropleth map to illustrate the correlation between COVID-19 infections and the percentage of residents who are Black across census subdivisions. Canada is more similar to the United States than expected in this respect: areas with higher shares of Black Canadians also see more infections.

As communities, health agencies, and governments continue to deal with the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, understanding how its impact varies over space and across population groups is crucial. But in Canada, two problems arise with such efforts. First, counts of COVID-19 cases are collected and released by Canada’s health regions. These geographic areas are used by the provincial governments to administer and disperse health care resources, but they are too large and too heterogenous to meaningfully understand the impact of the pandemic on more local communities and specific subpopulations.

Second, the COVID-19 data are not tallied separately by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or other demographic groups. Black Canadians, for example, constitute about 3.5 percent of the total population, with higher shares in cities such as Montreal (6.8 percent) and Toronto (7.5 percent), but it is not clear whether they are represented at disproportionately high rates among COVID-19 infections and deaths. In contrast, African Americans’ overrepresentation among those affected by COVID-19 in the United States is well documented (Thebault, Tran, and Williams 2020). There are reasons to believe that this may or may not be the case in Canada. Despite Canada’s national policy of multiculturalism (Brosseau and Dewing 2013), Black Canadians experience similar disadvantages and discrimination as their American counterparts, including in the labor market (Attewell, Kasinitz, and Dunn 2010). At the same time, Black Canadians generally report comparable or better health relative to white Canadians (Lebrun and LaVeist 2013; but see Veenstra and Patterson 2016).

In this visualization, we address both issues and provide an example of illustrating the spatial distribution of two demographic characteristics simultaneously. To examine the geographic spread of COVID-19 cases at a lower level of aggregation than the health region, we imputed COVID-19 infections for census subdivisions (akin to minor civil divisions, county divisions, or incorporated places in the United States). We excluded northern Canada (Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut) given their sparse populations and low COVID-19 counts. We modeled the number of infections in a health region as a function of demographic factors including median after-tax income, percentage Black, percentage foreign born, percentage 65 years and older, and population size and density. We then used these results to allocate infections across each health region’s constituent subdivisions (more details are provided in the Supplemental Material). Absent individual-level demographic and COVID-19 data, and thus the ability to say whether Black Canadians are more or less likely to become infected by COVID-19, the choropleth map also shows where relatively high proportions of Black residents live.

Figure 1 maps the distribution of COVID-19 infections and the percentage of residents who are Black across Canada’s census subdivisions. ¹ As expected, there are more cases in densely populated areas such as Montreal, Canada’s second largest city. Its province, Quebec, has emerged has a “hotspot” for COVID-19 cases, and although some have speculated that this is due in part to the city’s and province’s relatively large Black population, we provide among the first evidence that this is the case. More generally, communities in which there are higher shares of Black residents also experience higher infection counts. These two measures are positively and moderately correlated (r = .43). This is not due simply to larger population centers or higher population density: dark purple areas—communities with high percentages of Black residents and high COVID-19 counts—are found in more and less densely populated areas. For instance, large cities such as Calgary (Canada’s fourth largest) and Hamilton (a city near Toronto with population of more than half a million) as well as areas in Nova Scotia (a province with fewer than 1 million people overall) have both relatively high COVID-19 counts and relatively high shares of Black residents.

Figure 1.

COVID-19 in Canada: percentage Black residents and COVID-19 infections across census subdivisions.

This data visualization illustrates the utility of bivariate choropleth maps for showing where and which communities are most affected by the present pandemic. In addition to highlighting the surprising similarities between Canada and the United States in terms of racial inequality (i.e., the vulnerability of communities with higher shares of Black residents in both countries), the information in this kind of map may prove useful to policymakers as they continue to craft effective and targeted responses to the mass health crisis.

Supplemental Material

socius_R1_supplement – Supplemental material for Visualizing the Geographic and Demographic Distribution of COVID-19

Supplemental material, socius_R1_supplement for Visualizing the Geographic and Demographic Distribution of COVID-19 by Patrick Denice, Kate H. Choi, Michael Haan and Anna Zajacova in Socius