The purpose of this proposal is to address the variables involved in COVID-19 transmittance in the United States. The project aims to answer the following question: Would a partnership with state and local governments and national brands to reward wearing masks decrease the rate of COVID-19 transmittance? The goal of the initiative project is to analyze COVID-19 data for populations with and without masks and to consider if a commercial incentive will encourage mask usage.

The purpose of this project was to enhance our researching skills and to focus on epidemiology and how we could create a project to help combat diseases in our community. The idea of this project stemmed from COVID-19 and the obvious disparity caused throughout South Florida. My partner and I agreed that a great way to incentivize COVID vaccines is to offer commercial incentives, such as coupons or even a rewards program for people who are vaccinated. Since vaccines are not mandated, we believed that the best way to promote vaccinations was through incentives with large corporations like Walmart or Target that has a variety of different products, from groceries to cosmetics, and incentives from these stores are valuable to a larger group of people. A project for later on could be to possibly include smaller stores that offer products to a niche market, such as makeup stores, that could offer discounts to vaccinated people.

The Honors College value that this project encompassed was the research aspect. I would not have gained such a wide range or researching skills and group researching techniques without the help of this interdisciplinary project. This project helped me learn not only the epidemiology aspect that was the main topic, but I learned about marketing techniques, financial planning, business strategies, and project execution and expansion.