Fred Boehmke has received a $131,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for Collaborative Research: State Policy Responses to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus: Patterns, Context, and Secondary Impacts on Health. The funding will be used to collect data on state governments’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently model the adoption and diffusion of those pandemic-related policies across the states. To date, their efforts have identified over 16,000 state policy actions addressing over 200 distinct policies. Features of states’ policy decisions will be used to study the influence of those policies on health outcomes, including maternal and infant health. In addition, researchers will track state officials’ Twitter posts about the pandemic.  

The project involves researchers from the University of Iowa, Penn State, and Notre Dame. Undergraduates and graduate students will have the opportunity to assist with data collection and analysis.