Chelsea, Massachusetts, a 2.21 square mile city close to Boston, has an estimated population of 55,000 and a population density of 16K/square mile. It is ranked 29th in the US for urban population density. More than 60% of Chelsea’s population identifies as Latino/Hispanic and has a median household income of $32k. More than 80% of the people in this city are essential workers.
The Chelsea Project is an endeavor to create a long-term, self-sustaining, and resilient public health system. The project involves building block-level sensing and intervention in collaboration with grassroots community organizations and the city government. Our immediate focus is on helping the city with the COVID-19 pandemic.
We adopt a multi-disciplinary approach in building the new public health system in Chelsea, drawing on control theory, social epidemiology, public health literacy, causal inference, and complex adaptive systems. Our work builds on the Freidan framework for effective public health implementation.
