Digital Commons Network^™

Strengthening U.S. Jail Systems’ Response To Infectious Diseases: An Evaluation Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Erinn Bacchus

Dissertations and Theses

Jails across the United States were struck with increased infections and deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Studies have shown the structural make up of jails, lack of preparedness plans, and overcrowding contributed to health risks and poor health outcomes both inside jails and local communities. Yet little research has been dedicated to strengthening jail responses to infectious disease outbreaks spanning prevention measures, data collection, and reentry planning. Gaps include information on the (1) myriad infectious disease mitigation strategies used in jails and adherence to CDC prevention guidelines, (2) development of a standardized epidemiologic surveillance system, and (3) experiences working at …

Covid-19 And Labor Shortage In France: Exploring The Contribution Of Tunisian Migrant Workers In Bridging The Labor Shortage, Sana Gasmi

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis employed a qualitative approach, combining both desk research and in-depth interviews with 11 participants: nine Tunisian migrant workers and two Tunisian migrant experts. The thesis examined labor shortage in France during the pandemic and the extent to which Tunisian migrant workers managed to bridge the labor shortage relying on the Segmented Labor market theory which was originally developed by Piore (1979), and the two concepts: System Effects and Systemic Resilience. Findings indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic unveiled several weaknesses in the French labor market system including the acute labor shortage. Faced by labor shortage, France turned to migrant …

Using Industry Sector Entropy To Predict Economic Community Disaster Resilience: Real-World Verification From The Covid-19 Pandemic, Thomas Brindle

Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an opportunity for disaster science researchers to gain insight into the underlying nature of community resilience through comparing the socioeconomic effects of government action to a common threat across urban population centers of varying economic compositions. For example, the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment related to public health mitigation efforts in the leisure and hospitality sector of Las Vegas, NV, during the onset of the pandemic were well publicized. In comparison, other population centers of similar size but with different economic sector composition varied in the degree to which employment were affected, …

Examining The Determinants Of Timeliness In Crises Policy Responses: The Case Of Covid-19 In Egypt, Abdelhalim Abdalla

Theses and Dissertations

Timely responses to crises and pandemics play a significant role in navigating and minimizing the adverse impacts of such critical periods on the public and governments worldwide. COVID-19 could show and prove how a single virus originating in a single country can rapidly spread throughout the world, transforming an epidemic in China into a global pandemic. The virus caused more than 6.5 million deaths and around 660 million confirmed cases worldwide, according to the WHO, and sparked the worst economic catastrophe globally in more than a century, as estimated by the World Bank. Evidence suggests that the extent of the …

E-Quality: An Analysis Of Digital Equity Discourse And Co-Production In The Era Of Covid-19, Kelsey E. Edmond

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The digital divide refers to the social stratification due to an unequal ability to access, adapt, and create knowledge via information and communication technologies (Andreasson, 2015). Digitally disadvantaged individuals have inadequate access to services and resources, exacerbating existing vulnerabilities. The COVID-19 pandemic instigated a new model of digital equity policymaking that leverages co-production between numerous actors. As citizens faced new financial and community constraints and governments reached administrative capacities, both the digital divide and the policymaking process evolved.

This inductive study explores how digital equity policymaking shifted to a co-production model (Ostrom, 1996) amid the pandemic. Using a sequential mixed-methods …

How Latino Parents Coped With Financial Challenges During Covid-19, Melissa Gradilla, Valerie Malagon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This qualitative study examined how low-income Latino parents coped with financial challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data from this study was collected through one-on-one interviews with 14 low-income Latino parent participants who resided in Southern California. Results indicated COVID-19 caused financial strain in food, healthcare, basic needs, and financial strain in general. Results from this study also concluded that many existing government assistance programs benefited participants but had distribution and application processing flaws. This study provides future researchers and government officials some insight regarding what government assistance and local resources helped low-income Latino parents cope with their financial challenges …

Comparing Levels Of Situational Empathy Based On Medium Of Exposure To Covid-19 Mortality Information And Proximity To Others, Beth Durkin

Honors Projects

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many people expressed a lax attitude to the policies put in place to keep the public safe despite the high risk of infection and its devastating effects on health across the United States. It is possible that this response may be partially due to a “numbness to numbers,” a phenomenon that describes diminished empathy for a large group of people experiencing a negative event (eg. COVID-19). The present study explored the relationship between levels of situational empathy and the medium of exposure to COVID-19 mortality information (eg. personal story or fact sheet) in an …

To Be Or Not To Be: The Relationship Between Economic Diversity And Unemployment Rates In Canadian Cities During The Covid-19 Induced Shock, Yahaya Alphonse

Major Papers

Regional scholars have broadly studied the role of economic structure in shielding a community from economic shocks. This research has generally involved comparing diversity against specialization. This study compares differences within varying degrees of economic diversity in Canadian cities. Canada has received very little attention in this field despite the importance this knowledge could provide in shaping Canadian economic policy. This paper aims to fill in this gap by analyzing the role economic diversity played in acting as a structural buffer to the COVID-19-induced economic shock. This analysis is done utilizing a Herfindahl Hirschman Index to measure economic diversity and …

Elder Abuse In Canada: Dimensions And Policy Responses, Taylor Marekovic

Major Papers

Elder abuse and neglect continues to be a gray area when it comes to convicting perpetrators such as family, friends, strangers, and caregivers who commit any form of physical, psychological, financial, neglect, or sexual abuse towards an elder. This is due to the legal definition being vague and non-transparent. The legal and health systems rely on two different definitions of what is deemed to be elder abuse and neglect in Canada when reviewing or assessing allegations of such abuse. Elder abuse and neglect increased throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, during which Ontario and the rest of Canada experienced staffing shortages in …

Structural Empowerment Of Nurse Leaders In New York State During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Tracey Braithwaite

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The current phenomenological study explored the lived experience of Acting Chief Nursing Officers, Chief Nursing Officers, Chief Nursing Executives (henceforth CNOs) at hospitals in New York State who were charged with responding to executive orders while maintaining quality of patient care despite staffing constraints, inadequate supplies, or lack of additional support for the duties associated with their role. Their experience of structural empowerment in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic was also studied. The theoretical framework was Kanter’s theory of structural empowerment that addressed organizational behavior in the context of employee empowerment. The research question addressed how the CNOs perceived their …

How Government Organizations Can Sustain Remote Work Post Covid-19, Chikwendu Pius Nweke

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractGovernment organizations are unprepared to sustain remote work post-COVID-19. Even though COVID-19 seems to be under control, organizations are still struggling with the aftermath of the pandemic and the need to sustain remote work. Challenges include lack of necessary information technology tools, software, technological skills, strategies for remote work, leadership skills, real-time communication; activity planning and program implementation, scheduling meetings, organizing child care, managing caseloads, fostering team work, and effective supervision. A conceptual framework based on organizational adaptation theory was used to guide this qualitative case study. Since the study was to ascertain how government organizations can sustain remote work …

Did The Covid-19 Pandemic Cause A Learning Loss In Reading And Mathematics? Empirical Evidence Using 2022 Grade 8 Students In Kentucky., Tiyani Rodrigo

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

In 2020, most United States (U.S.) schools closed abruptly. Due to the pandemic, students and teachers were affected in multiple ways. Nearly three years post-pandemic, it is evident students lost in academic achievement. Lower academic performance may impact the future economy and labor force due to lower productivity. Therefore, understanding the causal impact COVID-19 had on academic achievement is vital to develop policy that will help mitigate the long-term impact. In this capstone, I will estimate the size and direction of the impact COVID-19 had on Mathematics and Reading skills for grade 8 students in Kentucky. Using a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) …

How The Increase In Remote Employees Due To Covid-19 Has Impacted Local Income Tax Revenues For U.S. Cities, Brian T. Pearson

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This research paper will discuss COVID-19’s impact on remote work and its effect on local income taxes for cities across the United States. The paper specifically will be looking into how the increase in remote workers has affected revenue and policy changes for local income taxes since the pandemic. Before the pandemic, most US citizens with jobs had to be on-site, but COVID-19 seems to have changed how businesses are operating for the foreseeable future. A lot of businesses across the country have shifted to having more of their employees working fully remote or partially remote (hybrid) schedules. This has …

Three Essays On Consumption Taxation In Indonesia, Partomuan Transparenter Juniult

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Consumption taxes play a major role in revenue generation for many developing countries. They are also used to encourage or discourage certain consumption behaviors. However, the administrative aspects of implementing these taxes can create challenges for the tax authorities, and lead to distortions in taxpayer behavior. To overcome these challenges, efforts have been made to simplify policies and utilize technology to improve administration and compliance. My dissertation aims to provide empirical evidence on the effects of three consumption or commodity tax policy reforms in Indonesia. The dissertation consists of three essays as follows.

In my first essay, titled “The effect …

Examining The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Violent Crime In The City Of Pittsburgh, Brittany Urban

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research is to examine patterns of Part I crimes [including Part I Person/Violent: Homicide, Rape, Aggravated Assault, and Robbery, and Part I Property: Burglary, Larceny-Theft, Motor Vehicle Theft, and Arson, as defined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Standards] in The City of Pittsburgh, framing the COVID-19 pandemic as a major stressor that Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory suggests may lead to increased opportunity for crime, due to the perceived unjustness of the associated lockdown orders and potential incentive for criminal coping (Agnew 1992). This descriptive analysis is based primarily upon …

Mining Public Opinion On Covid-19 Vaccines Using Unstructured Social Media Data, Chad Aaron Melton

Doctoral Dissertations

The emergence of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), and the necessary separation of populations led to an unprecedented number of new social media users seeking information related to the pandemic. Nowadays, with an estimated 4.5 billion users worldwide, social media data offer an opportunity for near real-time analysis of large bodies of text related to disease outbreaks and vaccination. This study investigated and compared public discourse related to COVID-19 vaccines expressed on two popular social media platforms, Reddit and Twitter. Approximately 9.5 million Tweets and 70 thousand Reddit comments were analyzed from dates January 1, 2020, to March 1, 2022, and …

Self-Reported Covid-19 Diagnosis And Severity And Its Association With Utilization Of And Delays In Needed Medical Care, Mohammad Hesam Alavi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Covid-19, caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. The pandemic-related disruptions and the pursuant lockdowns have adversely impacted every aspect of people’s lives including access to medical care, cancer care, preventive medicine, mental health, and dental care in an already imperfect healthcare system in the US. This study utilized the 2020 self-reported data from quarters 3 and 4 of the National Health Interview Survey, a cross-sectional interview survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to determine the possible association of self-reported COVID diagnosis, test positivity, and …

Flexible Working Practices For Educated Egyptian Women In The Digital Era: A Study On Telework During The Covid-19 Pandemic And Its Potential To Reduce Gender Gap, Sarah Sherif El Ashry

Theses and Dissertations

Telework has recently gained popularity around the world, a trend that saw significant growth with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Egypt is one of the many countries that adopted this new approach in an attempt to facilitate social distancing policies. This allowed more working mothers in Egypt to experience telework practices for the first time and be able to report their experience. These circumstances have presented a great opportunity to test its simultaneous application across different sectors throughout Egypt. Therefore, it is important to reflect on the adoption of telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to examine …

Not Just The Flu: The Impacts Of Asiaflucap Influenza Policy Recommendations On Southeast Asia During The Sars-Cov-2 Pandemic, Rebekah Huber

Honors Projects

During 2008 to 2011, a multi-year influenza pandemic study (ASIAFLUCAP) took place in six Southeast Asian countries: Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Cambodia, and Laos, to analyze their healthcare system capacities and determine appropriate policy recommendations in order that they might be better equipped for future influenza pandemics. This research expands upon that project to see if the countries that implemented higher numbers of ASIAFLUCAP policy recommendations prior to or in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic fared better than those countries which did implemented fewer recommendations. It finds that results are mixed across the sample, with no clear association between a country’s adoption …

The Covid-19 Pandemic And Material Hardships: A Qualitative Study Of Undocumented Immigrants In The United States, Erika Chavez-Marroquin

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The study aimed to recognize the financial impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on the undocumented immigrants living in southern California. Utilizing an exploratory method with a qualitative approach. The research interviewed English and Spanish-speaking participants who are a part of the undocumented population and have employee history. The study utilized a purposive and snowball sampling method and explored the financial impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on participants’ personal finances, resources they were able to access, and gaps in programs or additional resources through federal and state aid. Through the data analysis, the research identified the following themes: limitations on accessible …

The Covid-19 Pandemic And The Implementation Of The Americans With Disabilities Act Amendments Act In Higher Education: Discretionary Practices Of Disability Services Professionals, Crystal Denise Hill

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly transformed the landscape of higher education. The urgent nature of procedural changes in academic and administrative higher education services did not exempt leadership, faculty, or staff from their legally mandated responsibility to provide equal access to the educational environment for students with disabilities as outlined within title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act (ADAAA). The purpose of this study was to explore the strategies used by disability services professionals to implement the ADAAAA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sources and preferred formats of policy guidance were explored. The priorities of department, division, and institution-level …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Covid Policies And Student Growth In The Nine Largest Arkansas Public School Districts During The 2020-2021 Academic Year, Jack Switzer

Political Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

My honors thesis is a comprehensive overview of the relationship between the COVID19 response of Arkansas’ nine largest school districts on high school students’ Value-Added Growth Scores (VAS). I wrote my thesis on the intersection between districts’ COVID-19 response and the academic success of their students because the COVID-19 pandemic caused a historically significant change in education. The effects of switching from in-person, mask-free learning to virtual, semi-virtual and socially distanced learning certainly affected students’ ability to learn from the educational environment pre-COVID. I chose to utilize the VAS as the metric for student success because it measures how students …

Policy Side Effects : How Do Policies Become A Source Of Social Problems?, Yongjin Choi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

How do the consequences of a policy become a source of another social problem? Social science scholars have long recognized the possibility that policies often generate new social problems, unintentionally or even intentionally. However, public policy scholarship has been somewhat slow to translate these insights into systematic research inquiries and accumulate concrete knowledge about this issue. As a result, when confronted with the widespread social and political repercussions of unavoidable but strong policy responses, such as COVID-19 associated lockdowns and vaccine mandates, the policy literature has largely failed to advise on how to anticipate, handle, and overcome the hardships generated …

An Analysis Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On The Students At The University Of South Dakota, Alexandra J. Buss

Honors Thesis

The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly took over the United States (US) in the beginning of 2020. Nationally, damages to finances, housing, and mental health have impacted many. Despite being one of the least densely populated states, South Dakota quickly rose to some of the highest rates in the nation and was identified as a national hotspot. While there have been significant reports on the effects of COVID-19 on certain communities (healthcare workers, small business owners, parents), more research is needed on the effects on university students. In this report, I aim to assess damages based on financial status of students, mental …

Covid-19 Vaccine Uptake Among College Students, Erin Hoening, Elizabeth Morse, David Phillippi, Krystal Huesmann

DNP Scholarly Projects

Background: Public health strategies to improve COVID-19 vaccine uptake among college students living in residential communities varied, some universities opted to mandate COVID-19 vaccines while other universities opted to promote and influence the choice for vaccination.

Purpose: This descriptive, cross-sectional study examined the voluntary uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among residential students on a college campus in the southeastern U.S. that elected an evidence-driven health promotion strategy that included strong health promotion messaging coupled with coordinated efforts to make the vaccine accessible and appealing to students on campus.

Methods: Analysis of vaccine uptake was derived from campus electronic health records during …

Variation In Covid-19 Outcomes In The United States: A Policy Perspective, Lauren Mcrae

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Covid-19 On The Wellbeing Of Healthcare Professionals In Public Isolation Hospitals In Egypt, Shaimaa Sabbah

Theses and Dissertations

One of the most vulnerable groups severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic has been the Healthcare Professionals (HCPs), especially the physicians, pharmacists, and nurses who work in public Isolation hospitals. The Egyptian medical syndicate declared the death of more than 600 physicians from February 2020 till January 2022. In the meantime, the Egyptian government has worked on different policies for relieving the negative effects of the pandemic on this vulnerable group; however, easing restrictions, no total lockdown implementation, and monitoring bureaucracy has negatively affected the wellbeing of those HCPs. The study aims to figure out recommended policies to protect HCPs’ …

Why Do Street-Level Bureaucrats Risk Themselves For Others? The Case Of Public Health Care Workers In Egypt, Mohamed Adel Ahmed Eraky Moussa

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how street-level bureaucrats play an essential role in working under tremendous psychological and physical pressure with limited resources. Healthcare workers are at the front lines to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, and they are most vulnerable to infection and illness. Therefore, it is essential to identify the factors that enhance health care workers’ motivation at the time of pandemics and determine their willingness to risk their lives for others. The current study covers a sample of public health care workers working in two central quarantine public hospitals in Egypt. It considers a range of …

Covid-19 And Advanced Course Enrollment: Kentucky High Schools, Jessica Thomas

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

In Kentucky governments, districts, and schools made decisions about school closures and mode of learning that would impact community health as well as student achievement. Within those schools, students themselves were also making decisions that could impact their futures academically. In spring 2020, students were choosing their courses for the following year. Vast uncertainty about what the 2020/2021 school year would look like had the potential to impact those decisions. Disruptions to spring 2020 classes could also impact whether a student felt they had learned the prerequisite skills needed to pursue advanced coursework. This study found that advanced course enrollment …

Perceptions Of Implicit Bias In New York City Healthcare System During Covid-19, Kiesha Jackson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Implicit bias has been identified as a significant problem that hinders effective healthcare delivery. The purpose of this qualitative exploratory phenomenological study was to examine whether implicit bias influenced healthcare services for African Americans with comorbidities aged 30 and over living in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. Current studies show healthcare disparities, revealing barriers with healthcare delivery; however, they do not disclose a patient’s lived experience qualitatively, which constituted a gap in the literature. The frameworks of the behavioral model of health services use, and social construction and policy design guided this study. Research questions addressed (a) whether …