2021 Theses Master's

“NYC: After Life” – A Multilevel Intervention for Death Certificate Application Process Communication in New York City informed by the COVID-19 pandemic

Adhiningrat, Tamilia (Sila)

Nearly 29 million Americans of all ages – or 8.8% of the population – have contracted COVID-19 during the COVID-19 infectious disease pandemic since the first case arrived in the United States in January 2020. Of these cases, nearly 529,000 people have died, as of March 26, 2021. In New York City (NYC) specifically, there have been nearly 830,000 cases of COVID-19 and over 30,000 deaths, as of March 27, 2021. Unquestionably, there is a great amount of loss and grief around the lives lost to COVID-19 during the pandemic, especially in individuals and family members in New York City who have lost loved ones to COVID-19. This amount of loss also contributes to the detrimental effects of stress, anxiety, and confusion around the death certificate application process felt by individuals and family members in New York City who have lost loved ones to COVID-19, which contribute to secondary health issues and quality of life implications. Despite this reality, there is a gap in the quality and quantity of evidence-based interventions to enable individuals and family members who have lost loved ones to manage the negative impacts of this health issue. Understanding that the most effective and sustainable interventions are those that not only involve individuals impacted by the health problem, but also engages the environmental influences and influencers, this intervention – NYC: After Life – will engage agents at the individual and organizational level to positively impact the lives of individuals and family members in New York City who have lost loved ones to COVID-19. As such, the purpose of this intervention proposal will be to describe, utilizing the Intervention Mapping framework, a multilevel intervention aimed to reduce the prevalence of stress, anxiety, and confusion around the death certificate application process among individuals and family members in New York City who have lost loved ones to COVID-19. Lastly, if funded, the intervention will aim to contribute to the literature on death certificate application process communication interventions for urban communities like New York City and help to inform the approaches to improve support and resources for grief and loss in this population.