COVID-19 Research

About The Project

Our project focuses on the disparities of hospitalization and death rates by COVID-19 across different ethnicity and gender groups in the United States. We argue that these disparities reveal the failure of the public health system to adequately support the vulnerable populations during the pandemic. The recollection of COVID-19 was a tragic moment, with nearly the lives of 7 million people gone. To delve into the reasons why, we decided to narrow our focus onto the death rates, which can highlight which groups suffered the most and guide us in proposing ways to reduce future casualties during pandemics or public health crises. In order to do so, we specifically chose to narrow the data and dedicate our time to COVID-19 statistics within the United States. The data utilized is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We are studying the impact of COVID-19 on different communities to better understand the disparities that exist across ethnicities and genders. Our findings can inform early‑warning dashboards that trigger surge staffing or mobile ICU deployments whenever a state’s hospital‑fatality ratio breaches a predefined threshold, so we can help people understand how to better protect themselves from current and future diseases, and recognize the systemic changes needed to improve public health. Ultimately, we want to show that these health gaps are built into the system, not just individual choices.

This is also a project based off an assignment in a UCLA class conducted by Dr. Jordan Galczynski.