In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, governments have encouraged and ordered citizens to practice social distancing, particularly by working and studying at home. Intuitively, only a subset of people have the ability to practice remote work. However, there has been little research on the disparity of mobility adaptation across different income groups in US cities during the pandemic. The authors worked to fill this gap by quantifying the impacts of the pandemic on human mobility by income in Greater Houston, Texas. In this study, we determined human mobility using pseudonymized, spatially disaggregated cell phone location data. A longitudinal study across estimated income groups was conducted by measuring the total travel distance, radius of gyration, number of visited locations, and per-trip distance in April 2020 compared to the data in a baseline. An apparent disparity in mobility was found across estimated income groups. In particular, there was a strong negative correlation ($\rho$ = -0.90) between a traveler's estimated income and travel distance in April. Disparities in mobility adaptability were further shown since those in higher income brackets experienced larger percentage drops in the radius of gyration and the number of distinct visited locations than did those in lower income brackets. The findings of this study suggest a need to understand the reasons behind the mobility inflexibility among low-income populations during the pandemic. The study illuminates an equity issue which may be of interest to policy makers and researchers alike in the wake of an epidemic.

翻译：为了应对2019年科罗纳病毒(COVID-19)大流行,各国政府鼓励和命令公民进行社会疏离,特别是在家里工作和学习,鼓励和命令公民进行社会疏离;从直觉来看,只有一部分人有能力从事远程工作;然而,对于美国城市不同收入群体在大流行病期间适应流动性的差异,几乎没有研究;作者努力填补这一差距,在得克萨斯州大休斯顿通过收入量化这一大流行病对人流动的影响;在这项研究中,我们利用假名化、空间分解的手机定位数据确定了人的流动情况;对估计收入群体进行了纵向研究,其方法是衡量旅行总距离、波动半径、访问地点数目以及2020年4月的人均距离与基线数据相比的总距离;发现在估计收入群体之间流动性存在明显差异;特别是,4月旅行者的估计收入和旅行者之间收入和旅行距离之间有着强烈的负关系($=-090)。