Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic

OES evaluations and insights to inform the COVID-19 response

Background

The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has caused both a public health and an economic crisis. OES is applying evidence-based insights to help protect and support families, small businesses, those who are most vulnerable to health and economic impacts, and broader communities. OES has applied previous research on decision making and behavior change in other contexts, as well as more recent evaluations in the specific context of the COVID-19 crisis. For instance, the COVID-19 vaccine rollout represents a critical time in vaccination distribution and uptake efforts, and knowledge sharing across agencies can play a key role. The time is also ripe to design, retrospectively, rigorous impact evaluations using available administrative data to rapidly inform effects of policies introduced during the pandemic tackling issues such as student outcomes and the equitable distribution of small business grants.

Portfolio

OES worked with the Department of Education, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and other agencies to provide evaluation support to assess the impact of COVID-19 policy responses, as well as to share relevant lessons learned from past evaluations on communicating about health behavior.