Policies to Prevent COVID-19

While CUSP documents a proliferation of state policies to prevent COVID-19, a growing body of evidence points to a few key policies as being most effective. On this website, we summarize the research and stories that inform the policies we track in CUSP and which are most important for shaping population health and health equity.

State vaccine priorities and implementation will shape the total number of COVID-19 cases and deaths and disparities in COVID-19 cases and deaths. Face masks are another effective strategy for reducing COVID-19 transmission, and research based on CUSP data finds that state mask orders were associated with reduced rates of growth in COVID-19 cases. International research highlights the role of traveler quarantines and restaurant and bar closures in reducing COVID-19 cases and deaths.

Collecting and reporting surveillance data is one of the key tenets of pandemic response. CUSP documents whether states report COVID-19 data by demographic characteristics including race, ethnicity, sex, age group. These data inform which populations suffer the greatest toll of COVID-19 cases and deaths and can inform targeted policy responses to prevent COVID-19.

Data Library