The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown Mandates on Healthcare in the Bronx: A Public Administration Perspective
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted sectors that fall under the oversight of public health and safety administrators. In the Bronx, the imposition of lockdown mandates presented major challenges and crucial points of ethical dilemma for public administrators. This dissertation proposal examines the impact of COVID-19 lockdown mandates on healthcare in the Bronx from a public administration perspective, focusing on the deviation from established pandemic protocols and the influence of external experts. The study aims to provide insights into the efficacy of these mandates, the ethics of their imposition, with a focus on policy implementation and the resultant effects on health outcomes for community members, with recommendations for public administration practices in the future.
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a great deal of hysteria from media and politicians alike in all parts of the world. Rapid public health responses were called for, including strict lockdown measures. Despite having established pandemic protocols, public administrators often ignored these guidelines in favor of recommendations from external experts and politicians who had financial and political interests in the ensuing vaccine rollout (Boin et al., 2021; Sahu, 2020; Richards et al., 2020; Wang & Weinstein-Tull, 2022).
As both old and recent research have shown, fear is just as much a problem during a pandemic as the pandemic itself (Bagus et al., 2021; Karadimas, 2023). Jeong et al. (2024) studied the effect of Twitter postings on the spread of mass hysteria and what remains from their research is a gap in understanding what public administrators can do to prevent another mishandling of a public health crisis in the future. Since the issue today is that social media amplifies every message instantly across the whole planet, some policy must be in place. But for that to happen more understanding of what just did happen needs to be obtained. Did public administrators do enough to try to control narratives? How could social media, for example, have been better utilized to keep people calm and to perhaps have introduced more reason into the strategy of dealing with COVID that might not have devastated businesses or impacted peoples health (as in being denied care due to lockdowns)?
This research will be exploratory and therefore qualitative.
Research Questions
1. How did COVID-19 lockdown mandates affect healthcare practices in the Bronx?
2. What were the experiences and perspectives of healthcare professionals regarding these changes?
3. How did public administrators in healthcare institutions navigate the challenges posed by the lockdown mandates?
4. How could social media have been better utilized to manage public perception and reduce hysteria?
5. What lessons can be drawn from these experiences to inform future public administration practices in crisis situations?
Justification for the Research and Gap Analysis
Necessity of the Research
The Bronx was one of the hardest-hit areas and thus represents a critical case study for understanding these challenges. The healthcare sector faced extreme pressures that resulted in rapid and often unplanned changes in practices. This research is needed for reasons related to these points.
Established Protocols Ignored
First, despite having established pandemic protocols, public administrators often ignored these in favor of recommendations from external experts who had financial and political interests in the vaccine rollout (Goel et al., 2021; Wang & Weinstein-Tull, 2022). This unique context demands an investigation into how existing healthcare policies and practices were sidelined.
Policy Implementation and Public Administration
The role of public administrators in healthcare during a pandemic is important as COVID showed, yet this area still needs exploration and understanding. Understanding how lockdown mandates were implemented and managed, and their effect on healthcare for communities like the Brox, can provide valuable insights for future...
…the lockdown period to understand the spread of information and hysteria.2. Sampling:
A purposive sampling approach will be used to select participants from a diverse range of healthcare institutions, including hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities.
The sample will include healthcare managers, public administrators, and healthcare workers to capture a comprehensive view of the impacts across different organizational levels.
3. Data Analysis:
Thematic analysis will be employed to identify and interpret patterns and themes within the data. NVivo software will be used to assist with coding and organizing the qualitative data.
The analysis will focus on understanding the changes in healthcare practices, the challenges faced by public administrators, and the strategies employed to manage the workforce during the lockdown.
Informed consent will be obtained from all participants, ensuring their confidentiality and anonymity.
The study will be conducted in compliance with ethical guidelines for research involving human subjects, including approval from an institutional review board (IRB).
Expected Contributions
This study will contribute to the field of public administration by providing insights into the administrative challenges faced by institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings will have practical implications for policymakers and public administrators, and will be used to help with recommendations for improving response in future crises. Additionally, the study will contribute to the broader understanding of the intersection between public health emergencies, public administration, and social media during public crisis situations.
Conclusion
The proposed research seeks to fill a gap in the current literature by exploring the impact of COVID-19 lockdown mandates on healthcare practices within the Bronx from a public administration perspective. Through qualitative research methods, the study will provide valuable insights into the challenges and adaptations experienced by public administrators and the findings will be helpful in informing future public administration strategies, so that all stakeholders are better prepared to manage challenges…
References
Bagus, P., Peña-Ramos, J. A., & Sánchez-Bayón, A. (2021). COVID-19 and the political economy of mass hysteria. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(4), 1376.
Boin, A., McConnell, A., & t Hart, P. (2021). Governing the pandemic: The politics of navigating a mega-crisis (p. 130). Springer Nature.
Goel, R. K., Nelson, M. A., & Goel, V. Y. (2021). COVID-19 vaccine rollout—scale and speed carry different implications for corruption. Journal of policy modeling, 43(3), 503-520.
Jeong, D., Hanson-DeFusco, J., Kim, D., & Lee, C. K. (2024). Digital Mass Hysteria during Pandemic? A Study of Twitter Communication Patterns in the US during the Stages of COVID-19 Vaccination. Behavioral Sciences, 14(5), 389.
Karadimas, P. (2023). The World Stampeded: From Mass Hysteria to Prolonged Mass Hysteria. In The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Public Choice View (pp. 59-70). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
Richards, J. W., Briggs, W. M., & Axe, D. (2020). The price of panic: How the tyranny of experts turned a pandemic into a catastrophe. Simon and Schuster.
Sahu, A. A. (2020). COVID-19 Pandemic: Inducing Pan-Hysteria and Panic Disorder; An Overview. Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology, 14(4).
Wang, Y. A., & Weinstein-Tull, J. (2022). Pandemic governance. BCL Rev., 63, 1949.
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