Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a great need for United States’ restaurants to “go green” due to consumers’ habits of frequently eating out. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has caused this initiative to lose traction. While the amount of customers ordering takeout has increased, there is less emphasis on sustainability.<br/>Plastic is known for its harmful effects on the environment and the extreme length of time it takes to decompose. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), almost 8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans at an annual rate, threatening not only the safety of marine species but also human health. Modern food packaging materials have included a blend of synthetic ingredients, trickling into our daily lives and polluting the air, water, and land. Single-use plastic items slowly degrade into microplastics and can take up to hundreds of years to biodegrade.<br/>Due to COVID-19, restaurants have switched to takeout and delivery options to adapt to the new business environment and guidelines enforced by the Center of Disease Control (CDC) mandated guidelines. Some of these guidelines include: notices encouraging social distancing and mask-wearing, mandated masks for employees, and easy access to sanitary supplies. This cultural shift is motivating restaurants to search for a quick, cheap, and easy fix to adapt to the increased demand of take-out and delivery methods. This increases their plastic consumption of items such as plastic bags/paper bags, styrofoam containers, and beverage cups. Plastic is the most popular takeout material because of its price and durability as well as allowing for limited contamination and easy disposability.<br/>Almost all food products come in packaging and this, more often than not, is single-use. Food is the largest market out of all the packaging industry, maintaining roughly two-thirds of material going to food. The US Environmental Protection Agency reports that almost half of all municipal solid waste is made up of food and food packaging materials. In 2014, over 162 million tons of packaging material waste was generated in the states. This typically contains toxic inks and dyes that leach into groundwater and soil. When degrading, pieces of plastic absorb toxins like PCBs and pesticides, and then each piece will, in turn, release toxic chemicals like Bisphenol-A. Even before being thrown away, it causes negative effects for the environment. The creation of packaging materials uses many resources such as petroleum and chemicals and then releases toxic byproducts. Such byproducts include sludge containing contaminants, greenhouse gases, and heavy metal and particulate matter emissions. Unlike many other industries, plastic manufacturing has actually increased production. Demand has increased and especially in the food industry to keep things sanitary. This increase in production is reflective of the increase in waste. <br/>Although restaurants have implemented their own sustainable initiatives to combat their carbon footprint, the pandemic has unfortunately forced restaurants to digress. For example, Just Salad, a fast-food restaurant chain, incentivized customers with discounted meals to use reusable bowls which saved over 75,000 pounds of plastic per year. However, when the pandemic hit, the company halted the program to pivot towards takeout and delivery. This effect is apparent on an international scale. Singapore was in lock-down for eight weeks and during that time, 1,470 tons of takeout and food delivery plastic waste was thrown out. In addition, the Hong Kong environmental group Greeners Action surveyed 2,000 people in April and the results showed that people are ordering out twice as much as last year, doubling the use of plastic.<br/>However, is this surge of plastic usage necessary in the food industry or are there methods that can be used to reduce the amount of waste production? The COVID-19 pandemic caused a fracture in the food system’s supply chain, involving food, factory, and farm. This thesis will strive to tackle such topics by analyzing the supply chains of the food industry and identify areas for sustainable opportunities. These recommendations will help to identify areas for green improvement.

This thesis project is part of a larger collaboration documenting the history of the ASU Biodesign Clinical Testing Laboratory (ABCTL). There are many different aspects that need to be considered when transforming to a clinical testing laboratory. This includes the different types of tests performed in the laboratory. In addition to the diagnostic polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test that is performed detecting the presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), antibody testing is also performed in clinical laboratories. Antibody testing is used to detect a previous infection. Antibodies are produced as part of the immune response against SARS-CoV-2. There are many different forms of antibody tests and their sensitives and specificities have been examined and reviewed in the literature. Antibody testing can be used to determine the seroprevalence of the disease which can inform policy decisions regarding public health strategies. The results from antibody testing can also be used for creating new therapeutics like vaccines. The ABCTL recognizes the shifting need of the community to begin testing for previous infections of SARS-CoV-2 and is developing new forms of antibody testing that can meet them.

In this project, I examined the relationship between lockdowns implemented by COVID-19 and the activity of animals in urban areas. I hypothesized that animals became more active in urban areas during COVID-19 quarantine than they were before and I wanted to see if my hypothesis could be researched through Twitter crowdsourcing. I began by collecting tweets using python code, but upon examining all data output from code-based searches, I concluded that it is quicker and more efficient to use the advanced search on Twitter website. Based on my research, I can neither confirm nor deny if the appearance of wild animals is due to the COVID-19 lockdowns. However, I was able to discover a correlational relationship between these two factors in some research cases. Although my findings are mixed with regard to my original hypothesis, the impact that this phenomenon had on society cannot be denied.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, increased burdens have been placed on the Arizona healthcare system, and its healthcare providers. Using a survey with a sample of N=308 prescribing providers and nurses in the Arizona healthcare system, the impact of COVID-19 on the wellbeing of healthcare providers was assessed. The survey used measures to evaluate for physical and emotional wellbeing, burnout, stressors associated with COVID-19, and work-life experiences, and found an overall negative impact on the wellbeing of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic with increased levels of reported stress and tiredness, concern for the health of family and loved ones, concern for the hardships of patients, lack of alignment between organizational priorities and personal values, and low levels of support and appreciation from socially and from leadership at work.

Actuaries can analyze healthcare trends to determine if rates are reasonable and if reserves are adequate. In this talk, we will provide a framework of methods to analyze the healthcare trend during the pandemic. COVID-19 may influence future healthcare cost trends in many ways. First, direct COVID-19 costs may increase the amount of total experienced healthcare costs. However, with the implementation of social distancing, the amount of regularly scheduled care may be deferred to a future date. There are also many unknown factors regarding the transmission of the virus. Implementing epidemiology models allows us to predict infections by studying the dynamics of the disease. The correlation between infection amounts and hospitalization occupancies provide a methodology to estimate the amount of deferred and recouped amounts of regularly scheduled healthcare costs. Thus, the combination of the models allows to model the healthcare cost trend impact due to COVID-19.

The present study explored the relationship between desired purchasing behavior and individual differences using two nationally-representative, longitudinal samples of the U.S. population early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Past research has shown that individual differences provide information about how one might respond to threat. Therefore, we predicted changes in desired purchasing behavior across different sociodemographic variables that might reflect those differences. Specifically, we investigated hypotheses related to political orientation, age, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and whether or not the participant had children. We measured participants’ reported desired purchasing behavior across eleven categories of goods and investigated the connection between specific demographic variables and desired purchasing behavior. We found that conservatives desired to purchase more basic protection goods (guns/ammunition, cash, gas) and that older people desired to purchase more cleaning supplies and toiletries. These findings illustrate possible explanations for purchasing behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic and reveal directions for marketing designed to influence purchasing behavior.

Telehealth is the use of information and communications technology by healthcare professionals to provide care to patients. When this technology is being used specifically for genetic services, it is called telegenetics. Previous studies that examine the small-scale use of telegenetics for the field of genetic counseling have shown that the technology may provide a way to address the problem of patient access to genetic counseling services, assuming its efficacy. Patients are satisfied with telegenetics, but genetic counselors hold more reservations. Because of this and the many regulatory barriers in its way, telegenetics was only slowly being adopted when the coronavirus was declared a pandemic in March 2020. The pandemic forced a switch to telegenetics at a scale never seen before. This study begins with a literature review to assess the situation of telegenetics before and during the pandemic. It then surveys practicing genetic counselors in Arizona in order to reveal what they think about telegenetics when it is the encouraged, and sometimes only, modality. Since the literature review revealed that genetic counselors, not patients, are the ones with concerns, it is important to hear their points of view. This study reveals that genetic counselors want telegenetics as an option but not as a replacement for in-person appointments. All respondents agreed that increased patient access is the main benefit of telegenetics. There are reported challenges that must be overcome, but genetic counselors in Arizona overwhelming believe that telegenetics use will be continued in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in preventative measures and has led to extensive changes in lifestyle for the vast majority of the American population. As the pandemic progresses, a growing amount of evidence shows that minority groups, such as the Deaf community, are often disproportionately and uniquely affected. Deaf people are directly affected in their ability to personally socialize and continue with daily routines. More specifically, this can constitute their ability to meet new people, connect with friends/family, and to perform in their work or learning environment. It also may result in further mental health changes and an increased reliance on technology. The impact of COVID-19 on the Deaf community in clinical settings must also be considered. This includes changes in policies for in-person interpreters and a rise in telehealth. Often, these effects can be representative of the pre-existing low health literacy, frequency of miscommunication, poor treatment, and the inconvenience felt by Deaf people when trying to access healthcare. Ultimately, these effects on the Deaf community must be taken into account when attempting to create a full picture of the societal shift caused by COVID-19.