Suchergebnisse

AbstractAs of March 2021, the United States had nearly 1 million COVID‐19 deaths. To aid families, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) established the Funeral Assistance Program. Using publicly available data, we examine the equitable utilization of FEMA's COVID‐19 Funeral Assistance Program funding. Results show a significant relationship between FEMA COVID‐19 Funeral Assistance Program funding and some, but not all, social vulnerability components. Specifically, counties with higher percentages of the population with disabilities and higher percentages of minorities receive lower amounts of funding per 100,000 residents. These findings suggest that FEMA's equity efforts are not fully materializing regarding the utilization of the FEMA COVID‐19 Funeral Assistance Program funding among socially vulnerable groups. FEMA should broaden its social equity outreach and priorities for those not traditionally considered in social equity discussions, such as people with disabilities while continuing efforts toward traditional social equity.

AbstractIn the United States and around the world, COVID‐19 represents a mass fatality incident, as there are more bodies than can be handled using existing resources. Although the management and disposition of bodies is distressing and heartrending, it is a task that local, state, and federal governments must plan for and respond to collaboratively with the private sector and faith‐based community. When mass fatalities are mismanaged, there are grave emotional and mental health consequences that can delay recovery and undermine community resilience. Using insights from one author's mass fatality management research during the 2010 Haiti earthquake, this Viewpoint essay explores how mass fatalities are being managed in response to COVID‐19. Based on the researcher's findings a decade ago, it is apparent that many lessons have not been learned. The essay concludes by providing governments with practical lessons on how to manage mass fatalities to facilitate and promote community resilience.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which is still gripping the world, brought death front and center into many people's lives. In the United States, however, some of the deaths were treated as "more tragic" than others given someone's economic use value coupled with dehumanizing language. Using Debord's Society of the Spectacle, this is understood as a public values failure when economic productivity eclipses public health and humanity. Introducing a conceptual framework, this article explores this death narrative and implores public administrators to think about death management in a humane framing.

AbstractThe novel coronavirus, or SARS‐CoV‐2, which caused COVID‐19, emerged in China in December 2019 and by March 2020 had rapidly spread becoming a global pandemic. The pandemic tested nearly every aspect of the public sector including efforts to respond to, recover from, and mitigate its impacts. This Viewpoint explores COVID‐19 impact on US‐based public administration scholars and practitioners. The results of a survey conducted for members of the American Society for Public Administration showed that respondents grappled with issues involving institutional trust, organizational inequity and capacity, group‐based inequity, health measures, shifts in academic practice, and challenges arising from intergovernmentalism. We conclude with recommendations for future research.