Skyhook recently unveiled our newest offering, our Mobility Index, a powerful new tool that uses anonymous mobile device movements to model population behaviors at global, national, state, and county levels. Understanding device movement patterns and how they change over time is a powerful way to make informed conclusions based on data. The functionality of the Mobility Index has been helpful for researchers across industries, but it has specifically come to the forefront for those looking at the impacts of COVID-19 on various segments of society.
In this episode of Skyhook’s Conversation Series, Skyhook’s VP of Geospatial Insights Rich Sutton and I talk with researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology, UCSB, and Northern Arizona University about their use of Skyhook data over the past year. There have been a number of publications describing the disproportionate impact COVID-19 is having on minorities and people of color. This conversation specifically digs into the research team’s current focus on the impact of COVID-19 on Native American populations. The team is using mobility data to better understand how mobility patterns in Native American populations, specifically tribal and rural communities, changed before and after stay at home orders were put in place. The data has been used to analyze how overall movement changed over time, and also led to looking at COVID-19 impacts in those communities. Researchers are specifically exploring if there is a disparity in how different groups are affected by the virus’s spread.
Find out more about this research project, and how mobility data can inform other similar research.
