Intern: Laura Atukunda studies barriers to Covid-19 mitigation on university campuses

Background:

Laura received her Bachelors in Public Health and MPH in Biostatistics and Epidemiology at UC Berkeley. She is passionate about using UX research to inform products and services that improve the well-being of individuals. Throughout her academic career, Laura has worked as a research assistant across several institutions, including the Bixby Center for Population Health and Sustainability and the Institute for Urban and Regional Development. In these roles, she assisted on projects related to reproductive and community health programs in Rwanda and Kenya and worked on analyzing qualitative data to support the Center for Girls Education in Nigeria. Most recently she served as a Junior Design Strategist at Gobee Group, where she worked with clients to apply a human-centered design lens to projects related to health impact. 

WeHealth Project Summary:

The goal of my research was to understand the experience of university staff developing and implementing COVID-19 mitigation strategies on campus and identify challenges, needs, and key stakeholders. The objectives of the research included:

• Understand the main objectives and motivations of universities in their Covid 19 response, and the current strategies that are in place

• Identify key decision-makers on university campuses that we can target during outreach. 

• Understand barriers that universities face when implementing strategies related to the mitigation of Covid 19 on campuses

The methods used were secondary research and interviews. The purpose of the secondary research was to identify any research done previously on the topic, in both academic and grey literature, and understand the existing mitigation strategies on university campuses. The 4 semi-structured interviews were conducted via Zoom with university faculty and staff members and focused on their experiences and challenges with COVID 19 mitigation strategies.

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