Research Information
- O.U.R. Research Program: Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP)
- Major(s): Biology
- Anticipated graduation year: 2021
- Title: Latinos Living with COVID
- Faculty Research Mentor: Dr. Isabel Montemayor
- Faculty Academic Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed discussions on Latino health disparities in the United States to the forefront of academic literature. A common thread in the literature are calls for systemic changes to laws and policies that contribute to health disparities within Latino communities, especially as it relates to COVID-19. These suggestions are valid but they, in large part, are not in the control of the people scholars are writing about. The result is a solution-gap for what Latino individuals and families can do in response to the pandemic. This project attempts to fill this gap by presenting the ways in which individuals and families can minimize financial, medical, and social risk to COVID-19. It does this by utilizing a methodology that is also absent from the literature: ethnography, particularly site observations and interviews. Researchers viewing the pandemic through an anthropological lens are in a unique position to provide ground-level, practical, solutions for the Latino communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. These suggestions not only add to current literature, as previously mentioned, but are also presented using a methodology that is under-utilized to examine COVID-19 and Latino’s in the United States.