Tracking and Mitigating COVID-19 Spread

With COVID-19 exacerbating America’s racial health disparities, we know—now more than ever before—that Black Americans must be included in public health conversations and clinical research.

To immediately address systemic marginalization, we recently partnered with Ochsner Health in Louisiana to conduct a COVID-19 prevalence study focused on racially representative sampling. Using our novel Values Data Recruitment methods, Public Democracy completed the first population research study to successfully enroll a fully representative sample of Black Americans and other marginalized communities.

On January 23, Public Democracy began collecting off-line data to apply the iterative process and data tools we used to support veterans with severe PTSD and identify people at the earliest stages of opioid addiction to combating COVID-19.

By March 13, we had successfully developed behavioral tracking models that began identifying localized COVID outbreaks prior to the first positive test; and these models enabled us to identify loss of smell and taste as symptoms weeks before these symptoms were flagged in mainstream medical reports and made national news.

These early impacts resulted in our invitation to join the White House COVID-19 Data and Research Task Force and partnerships on teams working with the UN and multiple American agencies and public health groups.

You can also read publications from the Chair of our Board, President, and Communications Director on COVID-19 below:

Medium:”Incomplete Data Makes School Reopening Perilous, Especially for Many Black and Brown Families”
Medium:”Trump’s New CDC COVID Testing Guidance Has Far Reaching Consequences”
Medium:”We Must Do Better: The CDC’s Misleading Data on Children, Race, and COVID-19”
Medium: “Contextualizing COVID-19 Data To Better Mitigate Reopening’s Impact on Hispanic Communities”
Medium: “Top 3 Things the U.S. Can Do Now To Better Fight COVID-19”
CNN: “In Louisiana, Social Distancing is strange — and vital”
Medium: “Could Coronavirus Save America’s Future?”