Open AccessPublic health implications of opening National Football League stadiums during the COVID-19 pandemic
Author(s) -
Bernardo García Bulle,
Dennis Shen,
Devavrat Shah,
A. E. Hosoi
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2114226119
Subject(s) - covid-19 , pandemic , exploit , robustness (evolution) , public health , football , league , context (archaeology) , business , data science , computer science , computer security , political science , geography , medicine , virology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law , archaeology , pathology , outbreak , biochemistry , physics , nursing , disease , astronomy , gene , chemistry
Significance Using data from 2020, we measure the public health impact of allowing fans into sports stadiums during the COVID-19 pandemic; these results may inform future policy decisions regarding large outdoor gatherings during public health crises. Second, we demonstrate the utility of robust synthetic control in this context. Synthetic control and other statistical approaches may be used to exploit the underlying low-dimensional structure of the COVID-19 data and serve as useful instruments in analyzing the impact of mitigation strategies adopted by different communities. As with all statistical methods, reliable outcomes depend on proper implementation strategies and well-established robustness tests; in the absence of these safeguards, these statistical methods are likely to produce specious or misleading conclusions.