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Politics, preparedness, or resources

Examining state responsiveness to the COVID-19 pandemic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 September 2022

Luisa Lucero Open the ORCID record for Luisa Lucero [Opens in a new window] ,
Luisa Diaz-Kope  and
Hadiza Galadima
Luisa Lucero*
Affiliation:
Old Dominion University, USA
Luisa Diaz-Kope
Affiliation:
University of North Georgia, USA
Hadiza Galadima
Affiliation:
Old Dominion University, USA
*
Correspondence: Luisa Lucero, [email protected]
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Abstract

U.S. states are often the primary decision makers during a public health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic led to several different reopening processes across states based on their unique characteristics. We analyze whether states’ reopening policy decisions were driven by their public health preparedness, resources, COVID-19 impact, or state politics and political culture. To do so, we summarized state characteristics and compared them across three categories of reopening scores in a bivariate analysis using the chi-square or Fisher exact test for the categorical variables and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the continuous variables. A cumulative logit model was used to assess the primary research question. A significant factor in a state’s reopening decision was the party of the governor, regardless of the party in control of the legislature, state political culture, public health preparedness, cumulative number of deaths per 100,000, and Opportunity Index score.

Keywords

COVID-19reopening policyU.S. statesstate decision-making
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , Fall 2022 , pp. 276 - 288
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences

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