Data for: COVID Diaries, State Response to COVID Vaccination Program, December 2020 to September 2021
Project Overview This dataset comprises 5,223 unique documents published online on the official websites of governors’ or health departments’ offices across all U.S. states in relation to the COVID-19 vaccination program. The dataset covers the timeframe from December 2020, when states began preparing for Phase 1a of the COVID-19 vaccination allocation program, to September 2021, when COVID-19 vaccines were widely available to all adults and frequently mandated. It is a collaborative effort between the Yale School of Medicine and Yale's Tobin Center for Economic Policy. Our aim is to archive publications from State Governors and Departments of Health across 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, which researchers can utilize to assess the efficacy of communication strategies employed during this period. Ultimately, we aim to support policymakers in making more informed decisions. Data and Data Collection Overview This collection comprises 5,223 unique publications from the governors’ office and the State Department of Health from 50 states and the District of Columbia, released during the period from December 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021, and collected by the research team (specifically AM) between September 2021 and July 2024. Data were collected from the respective states’ Governor’s and Department of Health websites, using search with a custom data range, in week-long increments (e.g., 12/01/2020-12/07/2020), and key words . Search results were reviewed to satisfy the following inclusion/exclusion criteria: Inclusion criteria: Publications from state-run websites ending in .gov that relate to the COVID-19 vaccination program (except New Mexico’s Department of Health which ends in .org and Minnesota’s Department of Health which ends in .us). Exclusion criteria: Publications from county-level organizations, universities, and other organizations not related to state government branches or health sectors (e.g., .org, .com); videos with no transcription posted by the source; publications with no text; publications that refer to other than COVID-19 vaccines; publications not in the English language. The included publications are organized by sources → month → week of the publication. Next, the publications were organized by the publication type (classification done by BV, FFB, PW, LVDM, AG, and AM): information from the Governor and other state officials, policy from the Governor or other state officials, information from the State Department of Health or other state health officials, policy from the State Department of Health or other state health officials, flyers (1-3 pages with primarily visual information), and milestones (publications of quantitative patterns in the form of tables or graphs). AM and HP conducted the final quality control. The number of publications from each state’s officials, by type and by month from December 2020 to September 2021 are also listed as documentation (see file named Number_of_publications_by_state_by_month_December_2020_September_2021.csv). Selection and Organization of Shared Data The top-level-organization of all 10,446 primary files is by state, using conventional two-letter acronyms. Additionally, each item is classified both by time of publication (in folders labeled “raw”) and by type (in folders with self-explanatory labels, “Policy”, “Flyer”, “Info” and “Milestone”). Thus, each unique item appears more than once in the full deposit. A full inventory of the items is also shared in both Excel and CSV formats, containing a full list of publications with their upload dates, as well as the number of publications by state and by type, organized by month from December 2020 to September 2021. Additionally, the documentation includes a Classification Protocol used by the team, a Data Narrative and an administrative README file.
Moore, A.S., Vitu, B., Fraizer-Bisner, F. et al. 2026. "COVID Diaries, State Response to COVID Vaccination Program, December 2020 to September 2021." Scientific Data. 10.1038/s41597-026-06975-0
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