The COVID-19 pandemic upended daily life for everyone, changing the way we went about our lives in every conceivable way. Sudden disruptions to society were immediately apparent: School closures, business shutdowns, new—and in some cases, unprecedented—public health policies. But other pandemic impacts remain hidden, locked away in datasets and public records not yet meaningfully analyzed.
The determination to uncover that data—and make it widely available—led a group of Northeastern researchers to construct a “data-support system” from multiple information sources in and around the city of Boston that, when combined, paint a portrait of how communities and neighborhoods were impacted by the pandemic, especially those of color.