IUPUI, U of Miami launch COVID-19 database

INDIANAPOLIS (Inside INdiana Business) — A project tracking executive orders from every state dealing with COVID-19 since March is now online following research from IUPUI and the University of Miami. The Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI created a public portal in April to view COVID-related executive orders enacted across the country, which is now available online.

The research team was able to code more than 1,500 executive orders, which the dashboard organizes and classifies each state’s orders, ranks each by stringency, and allows for users to find how the information relates to the state’s social distancing practices and the number of COVID-19 cases. The tool also allows the filtering of data by age, income and the political affiliation of the state’s governor.  

O’Neill School assistant professor Peter Federman and U of Miami assistant professor Cali Curley worked alongside two student research teams to develop the dashboard to store all COVID information on one website to serve as a resource and a record of how state laws have changed due to the pandemic. IUPUI says the research team will use future funding to prolong the project to look at the impact executive orders have had on employment and equity across the U.S. 

“We’re really focused on pulling out the critical pieces of information that are impacting people’s lives,” Federman said. “This project tracks how the state policy and legal environments are changing as the pandemic stretches on and as states move between reopening and closure.”

The university says the team hopes to continue to document state’s new restrictions being put into place in the winter, with Federman and Curley planning to use their $10,000 first-place prize in the George V. Voinovich Public Innovation Challenge to hire students to keep coding orders. A second dashboard, to follow along as state’s re-open, is also in the works.