Isogenic cells respond in a heterogeneous manner to interferon. Using a micropatterning approach combined with high-content imaging and spatial analyses, we characterized how the population context (position of a cell with respect to neighboring cells) of epithelial cells affects single cell response to interferons. We identified that cells at the edge of cellular colonies are more responsive than cells embedded within colonies. We determined that this spatial heterogeneity in interferon response resulted from the polarized basolateral interferon receptor distribution, making cells located in the center of cellular colonies less responsive to ectopic interferon stimulation. This was conserved across cell lines and primary cells originated from epithelial tissues. Finally, we demonstrated that this population context-driven cell-to-cell variability influences the outcome of viral infection, as cells embedded within cellular colonies are not protected by interferons and therefore more susceptible to infection. Our data highlights that the behavior of isolated cells does not directly translate to their behavior in a population, placing the population context as one important factor influencing cell-to-cell heterogeneity during interferon response in epithelial cells.