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1. Disruption, adaptation, and maintenance of domestic violence services during the COVID-19 pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2024.2336580  

   Horney, Jennifer A; Pena, Annaliese; Scales, Sarah E; Fleury-Steiner, Ruth E; Camphausen, Lauren C; Miller, Susan L (December 2024, Critical Public Health)

   COVID-19 disrupted many aspects of domestic violence services including sheltering, in-person advocacy, and access to mental health, visitation, and legal services. Increased demand for services occurred concurrent with the highest levels of pandemic disruptions. Adaptations to many systems and services were made to address survivor’s changing needs. To understand how various aspects of service provision were disrupted during the pandemic, we surveyed a national census of U.S. based domestic violence direct service agencies. Email addresses were collected from online directories and each agency received a link to complete a survey using the online platform Qualtrics. The survey included fve sections: services provided; work environment during COVID-19; disruptions caused by COVID-19; personal and organizational disaster preparedness; and demographics. Twenty-two percent of 1,341 agencies responded to the survey. At the start of the pandemic, the most disrupted services were legal and court, sheltering, and mental health/counselling services. Hazard pay, fexible scheduling, and additional information technology support were most frequently mentioned supports provided to mitigate disruptions and support providers and advocates. Disruptions and supports changed over the course of the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the provision of services and advocacy to victims and survivors of domestic violence. Adaptations were made as new control measures were available (e.g. vaccines) and lessons learned were identifed (e.g. successful implementation of virtual legal and court services). Maintaining supportive measures post-pandemic will require continued investment in this chronically underfunded, yet critical, sector and applying lessons learned from COVID-19 related disruptions and adaptations. 

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2. Characterizing the impacts of public health control measures on domestic violence services: qualitative interviews with domestic violence coalition leaders

   https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16471-4  

   Horney, Jennifer A; Fleury-Steiner, Ruth; Camphausen, Lauren C; Wells, Sarah A; Miller, Susan L (December 2023, BMC Public Health)

   Abstract BackgroundPrior to the availability of pharmaceutical control measures, non-pharmaceutical control measures, including travel restrictions, physical distancing, isolation and quarantine, closure of schools and workplaces, and the use of personal protective equipment were the only tools available to public health authorities to control the spread of COVID-19. The implementation of these non-pharmaceutical control measures had unintended impacts on the ability of state and territorial domestic violence coalitions to provide services to victims. MethodsA semi-structured interview guide to assess how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted service provision and advocacy generally, and how COVID-19 control measures specifically, created barriers to services and advocacy, was developed, pilot tested, and revised based on feedback. Interviews with state and territorial domestic violence coalition executive directors were conducted between November 2021 and March 2022. Transcripts were inductively and deductively coded using both hand-coding and qualitative software. ResultsForty-five percent (25 of 56) of state and territorial domestic violence coalition executive directors representing all 8 National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) regions were interviewed. Five themes related to the use of non-pharmaceutical pandemic control measures with impacts on the provision of services and advocacy were identified. ConclusionsThe use of non-pharmaceutical control measures early in the COVID-19 pandemic had negative impacts on the health and safety of some vulnerable groups, including domestic violence victims. Organizations that provide services and advocacy to victims faced many unique challenges in carrying out their missions while adhering to required public health control measures. Policy and preparedness plan changes are needed to prevent unintended consequences of control measure implementation among vulnerable groups as well as to identify lessons learned that should be applied in future disasters and emergencies. 

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3. The Effect of COVID-19 on Various Racial Demographics in the United States

   Rayan, Trisha; Brown, Adrian; Carillo, Andrei; Sharma, Sharad (January 2020, 2020 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI))

   There is growing concern that racial and ethnic minority communities around the United States are experiencing a disproportionate burden of infection rate and mortality from the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). While most research, media newspapers, websites, and television networks are providing statistical numbers of daily infection and death rate across US by state, these numbers fail to study the actual impact of COVID-19 to each race. Our approach has taken the top five races by population count in the US and has calculated the impact index by race for each state for COVID-19 infections and death rate. We also examine the rise in the utilization of hospitals as a result of the rise in cases of COVID-19 in the United states. We conclude that the African American race and Hispanic race is disproportionately impacted more than the white population for infection rate. 

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4. COVID-19 Professional Development in Hawaiʻi: Teachers as Public Health Educators

   Chinn, P W_U; Hanohano, K A; Le, B; Maunakea, A; Yasuoka, A; Juarez, R (March 2024, NARST)

   NA (Ed.)

   Teacher leadership and agency can provide time sensitive, trusted information during times of uncertainty. A Native Hawaiian teacher’s place and culture-based COVID-19 lessons inspired a multidisciplinary team funded by NSF and NIH to develop four place-based, culturally responsive COVID-19 curricular modules. Educator-led outreach via in-person and online presentations was coupled with a project website that provided K-12 educators with independent learning to support teaching of COVID-19 in the contexts of: 1) historical epidemics in Hawai’i, 2) student inquiry into family health, 3) protection and prevention, and 4) vaccines, variants, and disinformation. Major findings include high ratings from Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander educators, increased downloads of modules following outreach, selection of Module I History of Infectious Diseases in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific as most valuable, and high engagement of elementary teachers. Teachers were most concerned about students mental health and disinformation. Those who taught the curriculum gave higher rating to leadership and governance in their schools and communities and were most interested in professional development as public health educators. Findings suggest that place-, culture-, and inquiry-based curriculum and professional development situated in students’ lives and communities has the potential to support teachers as public health leaders and communicators during times of change and uncertainty. 

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5. Understanding the Last Mile Transportation Concept Impacting Underserved Global Communities to Save Lives During COVID-19 Pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.3389/ffutr.2021.732331  

   Jones, Erick C.; Azeem, Gohar; Jones, Erick C.; Jefferson, Felicia; Henry, Marcia; Abolmaali, Shannon; Sparks, Janice (September 2021, Frontiers in Future Transportation)

   The underserved population could be at risk during the times of crisis, unless there is strong involvement from government agencies such as local and state Health departments and federal Center for Disease Control (CDC). The COVID-19 pandemic was a crisis of different proportion, creating a different type of burden on government agencies. Vulnerable communities including the elderly populations and communities of color have been especially hard hit by this pandemic. This forced these agencies to change their strategies and supply chains to support all populations receiving therapeutics. The National Science Foundation [National Science Foundation (NSF) Award Abstract # 2028612] funded RAID Labs to help federal agencies with strategies. This paper is based on a NSF funded grant to work on investigating supply chain strategies that would minimize the impact on underserved populations during pandemic. This NSF funded study identified the phenomena of last mile importance. The last mile transportation concept was critical in saving lives during the pandemic for underserved populations. The supply chain model then maximizes social goods by sending drugs or vaccines to the communities that need it the most regardless of ability to pay. The outcome of this study helped us prioritize the communities that need the vaccines the most. This informs our supply chain model to shift resources to these areas showing the value in real time prioritization of the COVID-19 supply chain. This paper provides information can be used in our healthcare supply chain model to ensure timely delivery of vaccines and supplies to COVID-19 patients that are the most vulnerable and hence the overall impact of COVID-19 can be minimized. The use of electrical vehicles for last mile transportation can help in significantly fighting the climate change. 

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