Annual Report Feb 16 2021

Dr. Chantel Sloan
Associate Professor
BYU Department of Public Health
COVID-19 Clarity
Author: Emma Freestone
In 2020, Dr. Chantel Sloan,
a BYU professor of public
health, studied COVID-19 and
worked to bring clarity, direction,
and answer to questions to the
BYU community. Her experience
studying and teaching about
infectious disease, respiratory
health, and viral infections for
the last ten years has prepared
her to lead efforts to understand
the disease and form a reaction
to it.
To discover patterns of
transmission, Dr. Sloan worked
on a research project that models
the likely risk of transmission
on BYU campus. To create the
models, Dr. Sloan, Dr. Micheal
Goodrich from the Department
of Computer Science, and
Dr. Candice Berrett from the
Department of Statistics made a
virtual model of the entire BYU
campus and compared the risk
of transmission for interactions
with different people in different
places, and interactions with or
without masks.
What they discovered did not
surprise them. Dr. Sloan
explained, “Classrooms
have not been a major
area for spread, but
housing has been a major
area for spread.” Keeping
distance and wearing masks
in classroom settings has
made a difference in lowering
transmission on campus, but
off campus, where students are
less likely to wear masks even in
small mixed household groups,
has been a different story. Dr.
Sloan found that even if people
are socially distanced, they still
have a high risk of transmission
if they aren’t wearing masks. In
her words, “Masks make a huge
difference. If one person shows
up wearing a mask, that might
give someone else the courage
to pull their mask out of their
pocket.”
Dr. Sloan has also researched
the effectiveness of masks, the
risks and benefits of opening
schools, and how the pandemic
has affected trust in government
and the 2020 election.
Of her experience, Dr. Sloan
says, “It feels good to be able to
say that I can legitimately help
people understand what comes
next, why things are the way they
are, and how we can interact
well and safely. That’s been very
fulfilling over the last year.”
Besides a call to follow public
health recommendations,
Dr. Sloan’s message to the
BYU community is a call for
understanding and compassion.
She explains the need for “giving
people room to make difficult
decisions” and advocates having
difficult conversations with
family and friends. She says, “We
want to feel like we have control
over our own safety, health, and
well being, but this has to be a
team effort, because you don’t
truly have control over that if
the people around you are being
less safe than you are.” She also
encourages “being intentional
about forming connections” with
the people around us, including
professors and classmates.
Dr. Sloan’s research and guidance
has and will continue to shed
light on the pandemic and what
the community can do to fight it
in the months ahead.
“ It feels good to be
able to say that I can
legitimately help people
understand what comes
next, why things are
they way they are, and
how we can interact
weel and safely. That’s
been very fulfi lling over
the last year..”
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