COVID-19

Controlling a pandemic requires a holistic view of the health system as well as communities’ and people’s needs. It requires collaborative planning and a deep understanding of the steps required to shift the system to respond, while ensuring that other health services continue.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, JSI has supported the response at local, state, and national levels, promoted equitable access to services, and, when they became available, vaccines. We collaborate with state health departments and local partners to implement case investigation and contact tracing programs, plan and conduct vaccination clinics, and maintain continuity of operations of essential public health services.

• JSI has supported COVID-19 disease investigation efforts by:
• Writing protocols and scripts for case interviews and monitoring, exposed contact notification and monitoring, and investigating exposures in schools and other institutions.
• Training new response staff on case investigation, contact tracing, and data management.
• Contact tracing, including making calls to confirmed cases, exposed contacts, business owners, and other organizational representatives.
• Educating people on quarantine, isolation, and infection prevention.
• Implementing new software to notify, interview, and monitor a high volume of confirmed cases and exposed contacts.
• Developing and improving processes for case investigation workflows and internal and external communications
• Coordinating data acquisition, analysis, and report preparation for COVID-19 dashboards and other pandemic-related data analysis projects.

Partnerships are essential in reaching all populations with vaccines, but particularly those most vulnerable to COVID-19. For almost 20 years, JSI has worked with state and local partners, including health care coalitions, to plan and operationalize medical countermeasures, including emergency clinics to dispense medication and administer vaccines. Our expertise and partnerships built over the years has enabled us to support planning and rapid scale-up once vaccines became available for the general public and in particular for communities that have had inequitable access to public health and health care systems.

Effective and timely health communication is crucial as public health and medical communities work to stop the spread of COVID-19. With our partners, we have implemented award-winning multi-media campaigns that focus on routine health care, community immunity, and vaccine safety to increase immunization rates.