How Cohorts Diminish COVID-19 Transmission and Mental Health Concerns: Lessons Learned from the Pandemic

This paper explores the benefits of cohorts on transmission of COVID-19 and student mental health by conducting a literature review and making a policy recommendation. Transmission of COVID-19 drew university administrators to implement changes to course delivery modes which often included sending students home and converting classes to online modality. While this addressed the high transmission, administrators were not yet aware of the significant negative mental health implications of isolation. An alternative transmission reduction method is cohorts, or smaller groups of students that continue to meet in person and foster connection among students. This literature review found from three different case studies that within COVID-19 cohorts, there was significantly reduced or no person-person transmission of the virus, and outside transmission was prevented from spreading within the cohorts. Since quarantine cohorts allow for social interaction despite periods of high transmission, they are also able to mitigate the severe negative mental health impacts felt from isolation. It is recommended that cohorts are implemented during periods of high transmission come a future virus.