Vida: Integrated Data Visualization and Decision Support Tool to Inform Public Health Policies in response to COVID-19

Provide a short description of the project (maximum 200 words) that is suitable for a lay audience. The COVID-19 crisis clearly illustrates the integrated societal impact of global pandemics. Due to the strong need for social distancing to reduce the rate of COVID-19's spread, the pandemic is immediately having impacts in the areas of health outcomes, food security, unemployment, housing insecurity and changes in the human-induced impacts on the environment in areas such as air quality and urban heat effects. Much of the public health interventions that seek to reduce the severity of COVID-19 take place at the local level, such as by city and regional public officials. These officials need to decide how to implement social distancing measures, how to ensure that essential services and businesses remain active, how to coordinate with other policy jurisdictions and how to respond to threats to vulnerable populations. All of these decisions need to made while considering a complex stream of data from multiple fields. In response to this need, the proposed project builds an online Decision Support System called Vida targeted for use by Public Sector Officials at the city and regional level.

Scholars @ ECU