Supporting Butler County during the pandemic
Students and staff in Miami University’s public health program helped Butler County during the COVID-19 pandemic, developing alternative housing plans for vulnerable populations affected by the outbreak. The work included coordinating a team of student contact tracers, developing a survey, finding space in local hotels, and compiling a database of potential housing options for the county’s Emergency Management Agency. “I went to school for all those years and read all those public health books, but this is real public health in action,” said Kendall Leser, director of the public health program. Paula Green, associate director of conferences at Miami, supported these efforts by calling numerous hotel sites for possible quarantine housing.