As much as SARS-CoV-2 has altered the way humans live since the beginning of 2020, this virus's deadly nature has required clinical testing to meet 2020's demands of higher throughput, higher accuracy and higher efficiency. Information technology has allowed institutions, like Arizona State University (ASU), to make strategic and operational changes to combat the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. At ASU, information technology was one of the six facets identified in the ongoing review of the ASU Biodesign Clinical Testing Laboratory (ABCTL) among business, communications, management/training, law, and clinical analysis. The first chapter of this manuscript covers the background of clinical laboratory automation and details the automated laboratory workflow to perform ABCTL’s COVID-19 diagnostic testing. The second chapter discusses the usability and efficiency of key information technology systems of the ABCTL. The third chapter explains the role of quality control and data management within ABCTL’s use of information technology. The fourth chapter highlights the importance of data modeling and 10 best practices when responding to future public health emergencies.

Developing a vaccine during the midst of a pandemic requires a careful balance between <br/>speed, safety, and efficacy. For the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. implemented Operation Warp Speed to accelerate the timeline for vaccine development. The FDA also imposed specific guidelines for granting Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). As of April 1st, 2021, Operation Warp Speed resulted in three different vaccines receiving EUA, all of which are currently being administered to the public. However, the rapid production and changes in the approval process intensified public scrutiny on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. This thesis analyzes the differences in fast-tracking a vaccine, which consolidated the authorization process into months rather than years, and delineates the main concerns of the public regarding the COVID-19 vaccine through a media analysis. Although the EUA raised questions about the safety of the vaccine, polls indicate that most Americans would still be willing to receive the vaccine.

COVID-19 has shocked the bedrock of society, impacting both human life and the economy. Accompanying this shock has been the psychological distress inflicted onto the general population as a result of the emotion strain stemming from isolation/quarantine policies, being sick with COVID-19, dealing with COVID-19 losses, and post-COVID syndrome and its effect on quality of life. The psychological distress has been experienced by the general population, but compared to middle age (30-50) and older adults (>50 years of age), it has been young adults (18-30 years old) who have been more psychologically affected (Glowacz & Schmits, 2020). Psychological distress, specifically anxiety and depression, has been exacerbated by feelings of uncertainty, fear of illness, losing loved ones, and fear of post-COVID syndrome. Post-COVID syndrome, as with other post-viral syndromes such as post viral SARS involve lingering symptoms such as myalgic encephalomyelitis or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), and loss of motivation (Underhill, 2015). In addition to these symptoms, patients suffering from post-COVID syndrome have also presented brain inflammation and damaged brain blood vessels (Meinhardt et al., 2021), Endotheliitis (Varga et al., 2020), CV abnormalities and changes in glucose metabolism (Williams et al., 2020). CV abnormalities and changes in glucose metabolism are connected to chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease respectively. These chronic illnesses are then associated with higher risk for depression as a result of the stress induced by the symptoms and their impact on quality of life (NIMH, 2021). Further monitoring, and research will be important to gauge ultimate physiological and psychological impact of COVID-19.

As restrictions regarding the COVID pandemic began to be enforced in March 2020, the first celebrity announced they had tested positive. It was Tom Hanks. An American cultural icon and a household name in the United States since his role as Forrest Gump in the movie Forrest Gump (1994). My family loves all his movies, especially Big (1988), and I found myself concerned for his health like he was my family. Every time there was an update on social media or the news, I held my breath for the other foot to drop. When my parents told me that Hanks was getting better, I breathed a sigh of relief. I heard many other pandemic stories like those of President Donald Trump, American singer-songwriter Pink, and NBA player Rudy Gobert. However, I realized that I didn’t hear enough about how my community experienced this global pandemic. I wanted to know how the people I used to see all the time navigated the health issues, isolation, financial stress, and other issues that arose, and more specifically, I wanted to know how their beliefs had helped them navigate the crisis. The purpose of this project is to share the Covid-19 stories of ordinary people across ages and genders—from high school students to college students, parents to grandparents. While no one person experienced it the same way as another, there were common themes across the narratives of the 8 people that I interviewed, namely, their reliance on their Christian faith during these times of uncertainty and fear. My interviews with participants lasted roughly thirty minutes, and I always started with the initial question, “what was your initial reaction to COVID?” I would then follow up by asking the participant how Covid-19 impacted their life. How did it impact their education, career, family, and community? I asked what challenges arose and what opportunities or good came to them during this time. I also asked participants what they learned about God and how they grew over the past few years. Each participant shared with me a quote, verse, or lyric they held onto, used as a source of strength, or represents a theme of their life during that time (you will see these written as epigraphs for the stories). Rather than merely collecting and publishing their interviews, I wanted to transform their experiences into literary narratives, so I turned to a practice called art-based research (ABR), a practice that involves the translation of fieldwork (and interview) into creative art forms. ABR addresses research in more engaged ways, and it allows us to share information in more culturally appropriate ways. By using ABR, this collection of Covid stories will engage and appeal more to a general audience. The resultant collection of nine narratives revealed strong themes of faith and family. Each narrative gave light to how the pandemic was hard and/or fruitful for the participants’ relationships with God and relationships with their families. The five participants who were 25 and under rendered additional themes of community and isolation while the four who were 26 and up rendered additional themes of emotional and mental health. The six female participants rendered additional themes of education and community while the three male participants rendered additional themes of politics and self-improvement. It is important to note that four of the five participants who are 25 and under are female while the group of 26 and up were half female and half male. Also important to note is that four of the six female participants were 25 and under while two of the three male participants were 26 and up. Thus, the small number of participants does not allow the research to apply broadly to any group outside the study. I hope that this project unifies the American experience of COVID as well as highlights the differences that make each story special. The history books will hone in on the generic and standard research studies will focus on the numbers, but projects like this provide a layer of humanity to the history we will tell future generations. I also hope that in the more immediate future, this project will serve today’s generations well in processing the trauma and grief that occurred during these last few years as well as render empathy for one another.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the pandemic’s effect on the psychosocial and physical quality of life of children with and without classic galactosemia and their parents in the Babble Boot Camp. The Babble Boot Camp within ASU’s Speech and Hearing Genetics Lab provides early intervention speech therapy for children with classic galactosemia (CG), evaluating their speech progress as well as other metrics related to stress and quality of life. In this study, the Quality of Life questionnaire (Varni, 1998) was used to measure how three pandemic stages (pre-pandemic, intense-pandemic, post intense-pandemic) affected the entire participant population, those with CG children compared to typically developing, and each family member (father vs. mother vs. child). These factors were combined within an integrated regression model to see driving factors and correlations within responses. The main results were that the pandemic itself did not have a significant effect, but there was quite a significant impact on psychosocial health when comparing affected vs unaffected groups. Evaluating an integrated regression model with the consideration of all three pandemic phases, the results show that the factor driving group differences over time was the affectation of the participant for psychosocial health and family member for physical health. When looking at just pre-pandemic and intense pandemic phase, both models in their entirety were significant, showing that all predictors (affectation, pandemic phase, and family member) drove health differences. Lastly, the findings of the study show that there were significant correlations between the health scores of fathers, mothers, and children throughout the different stages of the pandemic.

Studies during and following the height of the Coronavirus pandemic show that psychological and physical health levels decrease, due to factors such as reduced human contact and anxiety. However, there is little to no research on how quality of life levels would change over the course of the pandemic for families who have the added stress of having a child with a developmental complication. To answer this question, this study utilized longitudinal data from the Babble Boot Camp, a project under the ASU Speech Language Genetics Lab, to analyze quality of life measures in families who have children with Classic Galactosemia (CG). CG is an inborn metabolic disorder that causes an intolerance to galactose, a sugar in dairy, the effects of which can be deadly. These children often show signs of developmental delays in multiple areas within the first few years of life. Studying quality of life surveys before, during, and after the most intense phase of the pandemic, this study investigates the difference between these families and those with typical children.

During the year 2020, the world saw unprecedented social change with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, including increased risk of sexual assault. Limited information has been released regarding the pandemic and sexual assault; however, two prior studies reveal decreased utilization of rape kits and fewer emergency department exams for sexual assault during 2020 when compared to values before the pandemic. In Maricopa County, a group of forensic nurse examiners under HonorHealth performed screening exams on patients who reported sexual assault from the years 2015 to 2021. Using the prevalence of screening exams per year in Maricopa County, this study evaluated whether there was significant change in the number of exams performed during 2020 compared to pre-pandemic values. The year 2020 had the greatest percent discrepancy between predicted and observed quantities of exams when compared to the years 2015 to 2019.