As a part of the RUCI Lab’s ongoing research into the social, economic and public health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Jersey through the use of data analytics, we have created an interactive dashboard that focuses on how foot traffic to local businesses has changed.

Bloustein School MCRP/MPI graduate Haoyun Wang joined the RUCI Lab during the summer of 2020. For his internship project, Haoyun worked to create an interactive dashboard that integrated anonymized cell phone location data tracking visits to points of interest throughout the state during the first phase of the pandemic.

This dataset has proven to be a very valuable resource for studying movement patterns during the pandemic, and was also the basis for Dean Thakuriah’s earlier research report analyzing trends during the first phase of New Jersey’s public health emergency declaration.