The University of Washington Population Health Initiative’s COVID-19 rapid response grants program has awarded funding to nine projects involving the School of Public Health. These awards are intended to accelerate research that addresses a variety of population health-related issues caused by the pandemic.

“It’s exciting to see the depth and breadth of our School’s projects funded by the Initiative’s rapid response grants,” says Lisa Manhart, the School’s associate dean for research. “They not only reflect the quality of our research and the interdisciplinary partnerships, but they also demonstrate our ability to quickly respond to the pandemic and improve what we know so that we can ultimately find solutions to one of the greatest health challenges of our time.”          

In all, 21 faculty-led teams spanning 10 different schools and colleges at the University were awarded COVID-19 rapid response grants. The grants awarded by the Initiative were partially matched by additional school, college and departmental funds, bringing the total awarded amount to approximately $820,000.

The projects involving faculty, staff and students in the School are:

• Optimization of Environmental Surveillance Methods for SARS-CoV-2
  John Scott Meschke, Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences

• Using Machine Learning on the UW Medicine Electronic Health Record to Optimize COVID-19 Response
  Stephen J Mooney and Janet Baseman, Department of Epidemiology; Dustin R Long, Department of Anesthesiology; Jimmy Phuong, University of Washington Medicine Research IT; Monica Vavilala, Department of Anesthesiology, School of Medicine
  Sean D Mooney, Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education

• Assessing and Addressing Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak among Latino Immigrants in King County
  India Ornelas, Department of Health Services; Deepa Rao, Department of Global Health; Jen Balkus, Department of Epidemiology

• Codeveloping Culturally Relevant Messages for Farmworker Safety and Health in the COVID-19 Pandemic
  Edward Kasner, Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences;
  Carmen Gonzalez, Department of Communication; Gino Aisenberg, School of Social Work; June Spector, Departments of Medicine & Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences; Maria Blancas, Environmental and Forest Sciences; Elizabeth Torres, El Proyecto Bienestar

• Assessment of Disparities in COVID-19 Testing and Outcomes in King County, WA: Implications for Cumulative Impacts in Low-Income, Minority, and Health Compromised Communities
  Stephanie Farquhar, Departments of Health Services and Environmental & Occupational Health; Edmund Seto, Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences; Esther Min, Department of Environmental Occupational Health Sciences; BJ Cummings, Interdisciplinary Center for Exposures, Diseases, Genomics and Environment (EDGE Center), Department of Environmental & Occupational Health

• Examining the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Food Systems, Food Security, and Food Access in Washington State
  Adam Drewnowski, Department of Epidemiology; Jennifer Otten and Sarah Collier, Department of Environment & Occupational Health Sciences; Laura Lewis, Community and Economic Development, Washington State University; James Buszkiewicz and Chelsea Rose, Department of Epidemiology; Alan Ismach, Department of Health Services and Center for Public Health Nutrition

• Washington State COVID-19 Pregnancy Collaborative
  Kristina Adams Waldorf and Shani Delaney, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology; Erica Lokken, Department of Global Health; Ronit Katz, Department of Biostatistics;
  Sheela Sathyanarayana, Department of Pediatrics; Amritha Bhat, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

• Readying Pharmacies to Participate in COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination in Washington State
  Jennifer L. Bacci, Department of Pharmacy; Jenny Arnold, Washington State Pharmacy Association; Parth Shah, Fred Hutch; Bryan Weiner, Department of Global Health

• Artificial Intelligence-Based Analysis of Electrocardiograms to Predict Life-Threatening Cardiovascular Outcomes in Patients with Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19)
  Patrick Boyle, Department of Bioengineering; Alison Fohner, Department of Epidemiology; Arun Sridhar, Neal Chatterjee and Jeanne Poole, Department of Medicine (Cardiology)

For a brief description of each grant, see the announcement on the PHI page and click on the project titles.