Visit counts drop dramatically in 2021 Monthly Patterns

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#1

Hello SafeGraph Team,

I am studying the hospital visitation from 2019 - 2021, and found that the total visits counts in 2021 Month Patterns drop a lot. For example, the visitation in January in these three years decrease about 30%. Is it there a change in sampling rate in 2021? If so, how to make the annual data comparable?

Thanks very much,
Huan

safegraph_2019-2022 Jan visitation
safegraph_2019-2022 Jan visitation1473×647 147 KB

#2

@Huan_Ning_New_Jersey_Institute_of_Technology Are you seeing this for every month in 2021 or just January?

These drops in traffic could be related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though hospitals may have seen an increase in patients they were restricting visitors, which may explain the decrease in visits. I also recommend reading through this post for another explanation.

#3

Thanks, Hayden. I checked January and February, but the trend becomes increased in March and April. The post you referred to is also very helpful.