News Room

Just as COVID-19 has impacted nearly every aspect of life, so too has it affected the direction of research in countless ways. From faculty who stepped up to contribute to the emergency response to those who found themselves in the midst of an unprecedented natural experiment, UMass Amherst researchers have studied the pandemic’s influence from a variety of angles. Several faculty members shared lessons learned and implications for the future.

Disruptions in the healthcare system during the COVID-19 pandemic caused delays in breast cancer treatment that could lead to increased deaths, a new study suggests.

Local, state, and federal governments rapidly built a public health data infrastructure throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The data from all jurisdictions is critical to continuing effective pandemic responses.

I feel, therefore I buy. Marketers have been aware of the connection between emotional drivers and purchasing decisions for many years now, and they haven’t hesitated to use these emotional drivers to create marketing experiences — in other words, to get you to buy things. While in classic economic theory, consumers are described as rational individuals who decide whether or not to buy a product based on objective factors such as price and utility, recent research points out that most of our purchasing decisions are much less rational than we believe and much more emotional.