The PSTC has awarded COVID-19 Research Seed Awards to three faculty associates. Beth Fussell (Population Studies and Environmental Studies), Kate Mason (Anthropology), and Emily Rauscher (Sociology) have each received support for research projects exploring COVID-19 and its consequences at the population level. These projects draw on the recipients’ areas of expertise, while also affording the opportunity to pose new questions. 

Beth Fussell’s project complements her past research on population responses to disasters, which has included studies of migration responses to hurricanes, as well as responses to economic recessions and the home foreclosure crisis. She plans to use demographic data and COVID-19 metrics to develop an index that can inform our understanding of which conditions impact county vulnerability to outbreaks.

“The COVID-19 pandemic may be the most impactful and pervasive shock to the health and wellbeing of the population in recent history,” Fussell observed. “As I watched it unfold, I began strategizing about how to use federal data to understand communities' vulnerability to infectious diseases. My PSTC seed project involves assembling publicly available county-level data measuring population, housing, economic, and health conditions to assemble a socioecological infectious disease vulnerability index. The index has the potential, when combined with data on emergency declarations and policies and COVID-19 metrics, to show which conditions make counties more or less vulnerable to severe disease outbreaks. It will also provide an input to my study of the long-term effects of disasters on population health and wellbeing.” 

Kate Mason also anticipates that her earlier research will inform her seed project, which involves creating an archive of qualitative and quantitative data on personal experiences of the pandemic, through platforms such as written journaling and audio-recordings. The archival project focuses on the effects of the pandemic on mental health and everyday life, especially within vulnerable populations.

“This new project nicely combines my previous work on infectious disease and epidemics (e.g. my 2016 book) with my newer work on postpartum mental health,” Mason explained. “The journaling project is intended to function both as a way of collecting people's experiences of the epidemic – particularly as these experiences relate to their health – and also as a simple psychological intervention. It is well-known that short writing exercises can improve mood and reduce stress. Once the journaling project is up and running, I also hope to direct some portion of our efforts toward recruiting pregnant and postpartum women to participate, so that I can continue my ongoing work with this particular population using this new medium.” 

Finally, Emily Rauscher’s seed project will weigh the health benefits of school closures against the economic and social costs, by quantifying the relationship between U.S. state school closure timing and COVID-19 deaths and cases, and through an analysis of how school districts’ challenges and responses vary by demographics such as poverty rate and racial makeup. As part of an initiative between PLOS (and other publishers) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to rapidly disseminate new research about COVID-19 on open-access platforms, Raucscher's preliminary analyses of school closure timing and state COVID-19 deaths are now available here. 

Reflecting on how she can apply her previous work to this project, Rauscher said, “I've been gathering interview data with superintendents to learn how they responded to funding cuts from the 2008 recession and how they do the difficult work of district budgeting. This seed project lets me extend that work to learn how districts respond to COVID-19. It's closely related to the previous research because districts are expecting large funding cuts.”

COVID-19 naturally still presents a new set of research challenges. Rauscher explained, “There are two goals of the seed project. One part lets me extend part of my current research and another aspect explores a new area. Quantifying the relationship between state school closure timing and COVID-19 deaths is a new area. But it's closely related to my previous work, because I examine whether and how education shapes demographic and economic outcomes.”

The PSTC receives core funding from the Population Dynamics Branch (PDB) of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).