BACKGROUND: It is widely documented that people with a mobility disability are at increased risk of severe illness, morbidity, or mortality following a disaster. However, disaster risk is multifactorial and not simply a result of underlying conditions. There is a need to examine contributors to dis- ability experiences during a pandemic, and strategies to account for these in pandemic response. METHODS: Using grounded theory methodology, we employed iterative, inductive coding, and constant comparative methods. Sixteen people with a mobility disability from Ontario and Quebec, Canada, participated in 1-hour qualitative interviews (ages 20-86). Participants' disability etiology included stroke, multiple sclerosis, amputations, and other. RESULTS: The pandemic was a source of dis-ability for the whole population, making disability disparities more noticeable and highlighting the role of adaptive capacity in disaster resilience. Although COVID-19 compounded existing barriers faced by people with a mobility disability, participants were able to mobilize their assets (i.e., individual capacity, mobility assists, etc.), empowering them to take action to maintain autonomy. When the general population experienced barriers to social connection, adaptations to support resilience were at the forefront of policy decisions. New solutions, including digital infrastructure, demonstrated the potential to diminish existing barriers by providing accommodations to meet the accessibility needs of people with disability, especially for regular healthcare provider contact. CONCLUSION: The COVID-19 pandemic is an opportunity to break the cycle perpetuating health-related inequities. Pandemic planning, response, and recovery can be reformed toward disability-inclusiveness with systemic changes focused on human rights and physical and psychosocial needs of people with a mobility disability.

The unexpected COVID-19 pandemic demanded a strong and firm state response in order to curb the unprecedented, multilevel crisis caused by the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The arrival of the virus in the EU in early 2020, including the terrible Italian first-wave outbreak, incited the primacy of health and life over any other right or freedom. Although understandable, this scenario raised concerns over the possibility of instrumentalization of the pandemic by the populist governments, given the affinity between the rise of populism discourse and practices in the event, or narrative, of crisis. With consideration of the conditions of the rule of law in the European Union, the quasi-autocracies of Poland and Hungary become interesting research objects. The present work describes these countries' measures and analyses their legality and compliance to the rule of law, together with considerations to the impact of said measures upon these countries' democratic institutions. Furthermore, the same operation will be performed for the Italian scenario, which leads to a comparison to be made between the three countries' pandemic managements, and, ultimately, a comparison between the Central-Eastern European populism and Western European populism. Due to the novelty of the subject, there is a lack of work on the...

The COVID-19 pandemic has pressured governments to plan and implement policies to protect their citizens and economies. In British Columbia (B.C.), all local governments needed to plan and respond to the pandemic emergency to some degree. However, due to the variations in population, region, and resource capacity, there may be a number of discrepancies between local governments. Using key informant interviews with emergency management staff from local governments across B.C., this thesis aims to identify how local governments in B.C. used pandemic planning documents to develop policies to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis revealed that the majority of participants viewed pandemic planning documents as not critical to the successful implementation of policies. The analysis also identified what the participants believed worked well and did not work well when planning and responding to the pandemic with respect to collaboration, communication, staff impacts, digital infrastructure, and financial impacts. The thesis concludes by recommending that local governments develop a flexible plan, establish collaborative networks with target groups, create communication strategies with higher levels of government, and regularly review and update digital infrastructure. / Graduate

After looking at the existing research and considering the devastating effects of the present COVID-19 pandemic, the problem at the core of this thesis is found in the fact that the world is rather unprepared (Lakoff, 2017) for this type of crisis. While conducting an extensive review of the available resources, the lack of data and attention given to city networks concerning the topic of health was identified. The purpose of this thesis is to fill in the knowledge gap by exploring the potential of transnational city networks as actors in global health governance at times of global health emergencies, such as the present pandemic crisis. I find that the ongoing pandemic presents an opportunity to test the ability of cities and city networks to quickly re-orient their policy focus and collectively mobilize in reaction to a problem that impacts the whole world (Acuto et al., 2021, p.146). As the pandemic evolves, transnational city networks have taken it upon themselves to deal collectively with the public health challenges and economic recovery (Pipa and Bouchet, 2020a, p.606), and in this process, they have without a doubt proven their potential as global health actors, particularly in the initial phase of the pandemic response.

Parameter estimation of respiratory infection surveillance dynamics commonly utilize data aggregated over space and time. However, estimates derived from aggregated data may fail to account for biologically meaningful spatiotemporal heterogeneity of effects or to identify where and when transmissions occur. This dissertation shows that high-resolution temporal and spatial data can improve our understanding of heterogeneity while producing more valid and precise estimates of transmission parameters (e.g., contagiousness), behavioral trends (e.g., face mask utilization), and intervention effects (e.g., at-home test distribution). In three projects, we evaluate spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the context of two major respiratory pathogens: Tuberculosis and SARSCoV-2. First, in project one, we identify disease transmission hotspots from a tuberculosis case surveillance system in Greater Vitória, Brazil. Utilizing a human mobility model and recently developed method to quantify disease transmission, we overcome multiple methodological constraints that often obscure spatially and temporally accurate transmission measurements. We estimate that two cities in Greater Vitória, Vila Velha (reproductive number = 1.05, 95%CI: 1.03–1.07) and Vitória (reproductive number = 1.04, 95%CI: 1.02–1.06), help sustain tuberculosis transmission in the entire region and may be effective targets for intervention, while Cariacica (reproductive number = 0.95, 95%CI: 0.94–0.97) fell below the critical threshold of 1 required to sustain transmission alone. Next, in project two, we utilize interrupted time series methods to estimate the effect of mask mandates on mask adherence using a nationally representative digital health survey on masking and a comprehensive database of pandemic-related government policies. The analysis focuses on improving previous attempts at measuring the effectiveness of mask mandates at the state level, by utilizing county-level exposure and outcome data. We find that mask mandates were associated with a large heterogeneity of effects, ranging from increasing masking approximately 8% in counties with low levels of prior masking to 1% or lower change in masking in places like the Northeast U.S. where masking levels were already high. Last, in project three, we leverage the same nationally representative digital health survey to understand at-home testing patterns in the United States. We utilize two different economic measures of resource allocation and a regression model with autoregressive integrated moving average errors to examine if the Covidtests.gov government program reduced at-home testing inequities. We show that Covidtest.gov did increase at-home testing across all demographics; however, income-, geographic- and race-based disparities in at-home test utilization were heightened during periods when the program was active. Specifically, the regression results estimate that Theil’s T, an economic metric used here to measure at-home testing disparities, was 53% (95%CI: 6%–121%) higher for household income, 214% (95%CI: 86%–429%) higher for race, and 90% (95%CI: 23%–193%) higher for geography during Covidtest.gov dissemination periods. Disparities were not elevated for age. Together, these three projects demonstrate the substantial role that high-resolution data can play in improving our understanding of respiratory infection surveillance and informing effective public health interventions.