During the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, University of New Orleans professors Gregory Price and Eric van Holm of UNO’s Urban Entrepreneurship and Policy Institute, wanted to quantify the effects of social distancing.

Their resulting research, “The Effect of Social Distancing On The Early Spread of the Novel Coronavirus,” indicated social distancing is effective in helping to slow infection rate.

That research has been accepted for publication in Social Science Quarterly, the peer-reviewed journal of the Southwestern Social Science Association. The journal publishes current research on a broad range of topics including political science, sociology, economics, history, social work, geography, international studies and women's studies.

Price’s and van Holm’s research uses data from the COVID Tracking Project, which collects testing data across the U.S. and its territories, and the American Time Use Survey, a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor in 2018 that gauges how much time people in the U.S. spend on various activities during a 24-hour span.

The research quantifies the effect of individual social distancing on the spread of the novel coronavirus with data on individual time spent on activities that would potentially expose them to crowds. The activities included such things as grocery shopping, attending sporting events, dining out or going to work.

Throughout the developing COVID-19 emergency, Urban Entrepreneurship and Policy Institute faculty have been active in helping entrepreneurs to access financial and professional resources, as well as advancing scholarly and public discourse on topics related to the pandemic and the appropriate public policy response.