Current Research
List viewEconomists from around the world are using real time data collection to better understand the impact the Covid-19 crisis is having on families, workers, firms and society, and how policies can help the recovery out of the crisis. Find out more about how these research teams are carrying out their projects, and what their findings are below.
Covid-19: measuring the effects of Covid-19 on businesses and the UK economy
This application addresses two of the key objectives of this grant scheme by a) gathering critical data on the business response to Covid-19 quickly for immediate policy and future research use, b) providing new research with a clear impact pathway t...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: Paul Mizen
Countries
Facilitating the public response to Covid-19 by harnessing group processes
There is international recognition that effective response to Covid-19 is dependent upon the public acting collectively and for the common good. This is important in terms of adherence to preventative measures, which, especially for low-risk groups, ...
Primary Topic: Charities & volunteering
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: John Drury
Countries
Waste management during the Covid-19 outbreak: investigating a critical sector in crisis
The Covid-19 outbreak is transforming everyday household waste into a biohazard. Coronaviruses are transmitted person-to-person, however Covid-19 also persists on surfaces for several days (van Doremalen et al. 2020). Consequently, this pandemic is s...
Primary Topic: Business, big & small
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Angeliki Balayannis
Countries
Covid -19; cancer attitudes and behaviour study
Background: the impact of Covid-19 on UK public attitudes towards cancer is likely to be considerable, translating in to impact on the NHS from delayed referrals, missed screening and later-stage cancer diagnosis. Aim: to generate rapid evidence base...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Kate Brain
Countries
Identity, inequality, and the media in Brexit-Covid-19-Britain
Covid-19 and Brexit are extraordinary social and political processes that are occurring simultaneously. These events are exposing the major inequalities that underpin British society across class, ethnic, national, migrant, generational and geographi...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Katharine Tyler
Countries
The impact of Covid-19 restrictions on recreation and use of green space in Wales
The use of green spaces for recreation has acknowledged benefits for physical and mental health, to the extent of reducing mortality rates [1]. Green spaces include parks and gardens in urban areas, and the wider countryside in more rural settings. T...
Primary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Julia Jones
Countries
A longitudinal mixed-methods population study of the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic: psychological and social adjustment to global threat
The impact of the Covid19 pandemic on public mental health will affect need for services, further progress or resolution of the pandemic and speed of economic recovery afterwards. Policymakers have emphasised the need for a whole population approach ...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Attitudes, media & governance
Lead investigator: Richard Bentall
Countries
Covid-19: safety and personalisation for UK maternity care provision during and after a pandemic.
Annually, over 1,200,000 UK residents (pregnant women and neonates) need maternity care. All relevant authorities emphasise the critical importance of antenatal, intrapartum, postnatal and neonatal services, birth companionship, keeping mother/baby t...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Soo Downe
Countries
Impact of Covid-19 on staff mental health and well-being in SMEs: strategies and interventions to support workforce and boost productivity in the UK
Covid-19 pandemic has led governments globally to respond with unprecedented lockdown and economic measures to combat spread of the disease, and support workers and businesses. The pandemic presents a real threat to small and medium sized enterprises...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Prasanta Kumar Dey
Countries
The impact of Covid-19 on economic inequality and employment progression
The applicants have already collected novel survey data from a large representative sample of UK workers on 25th March 2020. We find large and significant differences in the impact of the economic disruption across workers of different income levels,...
Primary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Secondary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Lead investigator: Abigail Adams-Prassl
Countries
Covid-19: identifying effective remote literacy teaching methods for primary-aged children
This research project stems from a direct appeal from our UK teacher collaborators, who suddenly face having to teach pupils online, with scant training and patchy evidence on how to do so effectively. We aim to identify effective remote, evidence-ba...
Primary Topic: Schools, universities & training
Lead investigator: Manon Jones
Countries
Covid-19: monitoring the effects of the pandemic on illicit online trade.
The pandemic has reshaped the demand for goods and services worldwide. Economic stress, the public health emergency and disinformation-driven panic have pushed customers, and vendors, towards the shadow economy. In particular, dark web marketplaces (...
Primary Topic: Crime & policing
Secondary Topic: Trade & supply chains
Lead investigator: Andrea Baronchelli
Countries
Disabled people and Covid-19 in the UK
Disabled people are vulnerable to health and social impacts of Covid-19. For many, their support needs and their impairments make them more susceptible to the condition and increase the risk of mortality. This qualitative study will explore disabled ...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Charities & volunteering
Lead investigator: Tom Shakespeare
Countries
Food system impacts of Covid-19
This research will examine the extent of continuity and dislocation in the supply chain across dairy products, meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, and fish. They will look at instances of radical changes in routes to markets and the barriers to change;...
Primary Topic: Trade & supply chains
Secondary Topic: Business, big & small
Lead investigator: D. Michael Winter
Countries
Child protection and social distancing: improving the capacity of social workers to keep children safe during the Covid-19 pandemic
This research will explore the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on child protection, social workers and service users, with specific reference to the novel use of digital technologies in a period of institutionalised social distancing.
Primary Topic: Charities & volunteering
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Harry Ferguson
Countries
Supporting fiscal policy decisions in the crisis
We are going through an economic crisis. The government has responded with an unprecedented policy package, costing many tens of billions of pounds over just a few months – paying for employees to be furloughed, making payments to the self-employed...
Primary Topic: Families & households
Secondary Topic: Recession & recovery
Lead investigator: Paul Johnson
Countries
Covid-19: burden and impact in care homes – a mixed methods study
The Covid-19 pandemic poses a substantial risk to elderly and vulnerable care home residents and Covid-19 can spread rapidly in care homes. We have national, daily data on people with Covid-19 and deaths, but there is no similar data for care homes. ...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Charities & volunteering
Lead investigator: Laura Shallcross
Countries
The impact of the Covid-19 crisis on nutrition
A major challenge facing policymaking during the Covid-19 crisis is ensuring all households have access to a nutritious diet. The Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have provided supermarkets with a list of 1.5 million vulner...
Primary Topic: Inequality & poverty
Secondary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Lead investigator: Martin O'Connell
Countries
English longitudinal study of ageing Covid-19 substudy
The Covid-19 crisis is having an unprecedented impact on people's lives from the perspectives of their health, psychological wellbeing, social activity, employment and financial circumstances. Older people are at high risk because of the presenc...
Primary Topic: Health, physical & mental
Secondary Topic: Families & households
Lead investigator: Andrew Steptoe
Countries
Welfare at a (social) distance: accessing social security and employment support during the Covid-19 crisis and its aftermath
The benefits system is crucial to supporting people during, and after, the Covid-19 crisis but is under extraordinary pressure from an unprecedented wave of new Universal Credit (UC) applications. The benefits system therefore faces two significant c...
Primary Topic: Public spending, taxes & debt
Secondary Topic: Jobs, work, pay & benefits
Lead investigator: Lisa Scullion
Countries
