Abstract

In recent years Puerto Rico has faced a series of unfavorable events including financial turmoil, massive population loss, earthquakes, and droughts. These events had significantly impacted its resources and capacity to confront a major public health crisis. As such, Puerto Rico was expected to poorly manage the ongoing pandemic. Despite this, nearly all data surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic in Puerto Rico has indicated the contrary. The purpose of this study was to explore and understand the COVID-19 response in Puerto Rico. The Conservation of Resources theory guided the analysis of resource consumption and management of the Puerto Rican government and community level during the year of 2021 which is when most of the disbursement of the COVID-19 vaccines occurred. A Discourse Analysis was used to investigate various national news organizations and wire feeds to acquire information surrounding the reasonings of Puerto Rico's success. The analysis conducted resulted in four themes that explain the reasoning behind the success of Puerto Rico throughout the pandemic; the themes included Distrust in Government, Government Involvement, Depoliticization and Community Involvement. The results indicated that individual and community involvement of the people, their efficient usage of the resources gained by the federal government and nonprofit organizations, as well as their own resources of resilience and social networks, created the success that Puerto Rico has seen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2022

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Rivera, Fernando

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Sociology

Degree Program

Applied Sociology

Identifier

CFE0009156; DP0026752

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0026752

Language

English

Release Date

August 2022

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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