COVID-19 Pandemic Response and Recovery | Using Predictive Analytics for Humanitarian Goals

Covid-19 in Charlottesville: Toward an Equitable Response and Recovery
The pandemic has worsened existing wealth and health disparities, particularly affecting minority groups already marginalized before the crisis, including families of color, low-income individuals, non-native English speakers, and those facing multiple vulnerabilities. The Humanitarian Collaborative partnered with organizations like Cultivate Charlottesville’s Food Justice Network and the UVA Equity Center to develop strategies ensuring aid reaches those most in need. Key efforts focus on food security response and recovery and improving coordination between grassroots and public actors.

Planning and Pandemics: How the Design of Refugee Camps Influences the Spread of Infectious Disease
Coronavirus poses a significant threat to refugee camps, where high population density and limited access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure heighten vulnerability. To understand and predict the spread of COVID-19, researchers examined four camps—Kakuma and Dadaab in Kenya, Zaatari in Jordan, and Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh—using geolocated maps and existing studies. This approach enabled comparisons within a single host country (Kenya) and across countries. Additionally, differences in camp composition were considered, as Cox’s Bazar and Zaatari are ethnically homogenous, while Kakuma and Dadaab are more diverse, with segregation policies in place to reduce violence. These policies, the study hypothesized, might also influence the spread of disease.

While there is limited work exploring the transmission of disease in refugee camps, none of it is comparative across multiple camp settings. Our results informed data-driven improvements to camp design and policies aimed at minimizing disease diffusion, which is critical given the severe healthcare shortages in such settings. Combined, the four camps have hosted up to 1.5 million people, demonstrating the wide-reaching impact of better policies. Moreover, the insights gained extend beyond refugee camps to other closed populations, such as migrant detention centers and prisons, highlighting their broader applicability in managing disease outbreaks.

Pandemics and Supply Chain Stability
Global commercial activity depends on resilient international supply chains, but the COVID-19 crisis has exposed vulnerabilities at the intersection of public health and economic systems. In partnership with Interos.ai, this project developed and implemented a supply chain risk management tool that integrates not only the occurrence of infectious diseases but also the risk of their emergence. This innovative framework provides empirical models for crafting policy recommendations, addressing supply chain resilience, and assessing the vulnerability of health systems to pandemic threats.

Using Predictive Analytics for Humanitarian Goals

As the humanitarian operational community invests in data-driven strategic planning and programming, they’re developing the forecasting tools that will help predict the timing, magnitude, and duration of mass-displacement and crisis events that affect children and their families. This theme brought together faculty from Batten, the Departments of Statistics, Politics, and Systems Engineering, along with the School of Data Science, among others to build and evaluate useful displacement models that can guide humanitarian response.

Development of a Broad Predictive Analytics Platform for Humanitarian Crises
In partnership with SCI, UVA faculty and students are expanding on the SCI displacement forecasting prototype to create a broader platform. The team is:

1. identifying knowledge gaps in the modeling of displacement events;
2. engaging in data collection, cleaning, and collating of data related to understanding displacement events;
3. identifying both structural and dynamic variables that influence the occurrence, duration, and magnitude of displacement events;
4. developing a statistical model the forecast future displacement events at reasonable intervals;
5. demonstrating the validity of the model using historical qualitative and quantitative data, statistical cross validation, and “ground-truthing” working directly with Save the Children staff working on children migration issues worldwide; and
6. working together to begin the process of developing a user-interface so that relevant actors can generate forecasts based on needs of their constituencies.

A validated tool for real-time predictive analytics is of use across the humanitarian response landscape. The development of such a tool will generate knowledge spillovers in applied statistics and forecasting as well as for forecasting efforts in related policy arenas.

Network-based Mobility Modeling for Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
Human mobility significantly influences the spread and impact of infectious diseases, especially during complex humanitarian crises caused by civil conflict or natural disasters. These crises often involve mass displacements, damaged infrastructure, and disease outbreaks, with displaced populations seeking refuge and interacting with others, thereby spreading disease. However, current outbreak response models struggle to account for the social and spatial impacts of such crises, making it difficult to evaluate policy responses or interventions effectively.

In collaboration with the Global Infectious Disease Institute, UVA faculty and students aimed to fill these gaps by developing a novel simulation framework. This tool integrates migration drivers and barriers while modeling the spread of infectious diseases, drawing on past work in epidemic modeling, network construction, and global migration patterns. The project sought to advance understanding of how to quantitatively assess complex emergencies and improve risk assessment and response strategies for infectious disease outbreaks in humanitarian settings.

IRC New Roots PhotoVoice Exhibition

The New Roots PhotoVoice Exhibition is the culmination of a collaborative research project between the International Rescue Committee and its participant “co-researchers” in the New Roots program. Through their own photographs, refugee and immigrant farmers explored the question “How has New Roots affected my life?” Co-researchers then collaboratively synthesized hundreds of images into the most important and valuable themes and their associated stories. A final exhibit of the artwork and captions will be shared with the public and community stakeholders. The goal is to provide the IRC New Roots program with insight into their work through a participatory and community driven process using the universal language of photographs.

What is PhotoVoice? Photovoice is a participatory action research (PAR) method that empowers individuals to capture photographic images and share narratives to explore community issues or concerns. Unlike photo elicitation, which uses photos as prompts for discussion, Photovoice places cameras in participants’ hands, allowing them to document both positive and negative aspects of their lives. These images and accompanying stories serve as tools for advocacy, raising awareness among decision-makers such as community leaders, policymakers, and the public.

Pioneered in the 1990s by Caroline Wang and Mary Ann Burris, Photovoice emphasizes collaboration by making participants “co-researchers.” Their photo-narratives set the stage for discussions and can be showcased through public exhibits, community events, and online platforms to amplify voices that are often underrepresented, fostering deeper understanding and action.

What is the IRC New Roots Program? The International Rescue Committee (IRC), founded in 1933 at Albert Einstein’s request, aids those affected by global crises, helping them rebuild their lives. Since 1998, the IRC in Charlottesville has resettled nearly 4,000 individuals, providing essential services like case management, employment support, medical care, and immigration assistance to refugees and immigrants. Its New Roots program promotes health, community connection, and economic stability through initiatives like community gardening, market farming, nutrition education, and local produce stands, serving over 200 participants last year. These efforts help New Americans integrate and thrive in their new community.

(W)here To Stay?!

Inspired by the Humanitarian Collaborative and the Peace Appeal Foundation, (W)HERE TO STAY?! explores themes of displacement, belonging, and community in Charlottesville. Through a series of exhibitions and events, it invited residents to reflect on what it means to find a place to stay, feel a sense of belonging, and address the visibility of displacement in the local context.

EXHIBITION and EVENTS: The initiative featured Swedish photographer Magnus Wennman’s Where the Children Sleep, a moving series documenting refugee children displaced by the Syrian war. The photographs were displayed across diverse Charlottesville locations, from civic spaces to religious institutions, aiming to foster chance encounters with the powerful images. Complementary talks and creative workshops engaged children and adults in activities like reflective writing and drawing, encouraging dialogue around displacement and belonging.

CELEBRATION OF COMMUNITY CONVERSATION AND CREATIVITY: After the initial partitioned exhibition, we planned to bring the entire exhibition together in one place. Our hope was that the exhibit will be united at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, which memorializes a local legacy of resisting displacement while also serving as an incubator for a vision of Charlottesville as a vitally inclusive community. Residents who participated in isolated events or smaller conversations were invited to see the exhibition as a whole, alongside a celebration of some of their own artwork and writing.

“Emergency,” “Crisis,” OR “Disaster?”

Emergency claims—claims that particular situations are emergencies—can be immensely powerful. In humanitarian contexts, emergency claims are used to defend the use of violent force (e.g. “humanitarian” military intervention), direct attention and resources to particular situations, and justify violating normal rules and procedures (or shifting to a different set of rules and procedures). Emergency claims only have these effects, however, if they succeed—that is, if they are accepted by relevant audiences. What makes emergency claims succeed in humanitarian contexts?

Sometimes images, especially photographs and videos, play a dominant role. In other cases, narrative testimony by survivors, aid workers, and journalists is key. Yet in other cases, formal technical criteria and standards are decisive. These elements of emergency claim-making often function together: images can spur public demand for action, leading to investigations and the collection of narrative testimony. However, different audiences may be more or less persuaded by each type of evidence. The project aims to better understand the role of technical standards in defining what constitutes an emergency and to offer insights that could aid practitioners and researchers in understanding the dynamics of emergency claim-making.

“Issue H” – Social Media and Humanitarian Aid

Issue H investigated how humanitarian aid organizations can improve the ways in which one can use social media to raise awareness and creative engagement with humanitarian issues. Different groups and individuals took over the Instagram account and experiment with combining new forms of imagery and their cause. Ultimately Issue H sought to offer new insights on how our partners can better use their social media to increase audience engagement.

Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow

“A Venezuelan Journey: The search for a New Home” Exhibition by TBLA UVa

Dis/placement: Uncertain Journeys

DISPLACEMENT: Uncertain Journeys is a multi-year collaborative art project aimed at fostering artistic responses to disaster displacement. It supports the Platform on Disaster Displacement through exhibitions that offer policymakers a chance to engage with the issue from a visual, emotional, and experiential perspective. The project seeks to create spaces that encourage new ideas, putting the human story at the heart of policy discussions, and collaborates with artists from regions most affected by disaster displacement. During the 11th Global Forum on Migration and Development Summit in Marrakesh, DISPLACEMENT showcased contemporary art to highlight the challenges and solutions related to disaster displacement.