The Coronavirus Visualization Team (CVT) is a non-profit organization from Harvard University, consisting of a group of highly motivated students working towards fighting the overwhelming influx of misinformation during this pandemic. We have partnered with the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis and MIT Innovation Initiative and currently have well over 200 members working on more than 25 projects.

End Gender-Based Violence is one such project. The sharp rise in domestic and sexual violence against women during the COVID-19 pandemic leaves much to be accomplished in terms of rehabilitation and employment options for the victims. Helplines have never been busier and unmet abortion needs are expected to skyrocket. Our team aims to study this data, extract valuable insights, and help devise possible solutions to these challenges. I am currently involved as the Project Co-Lead for this project and our partners include Safe Horizon, Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (RICADV), Harvard Medical School and Columbia University.

Some of our existing results include:

  • Visualizations for 9 cities in the United States, which compares violent crimes against women during 2019 and 2020 by plotting latitude-longitude data on maps with a street-level view.
  • A week-wise comparison of police reports and month-wise comparison of domestic violence hotline calls in Providence, Rhode Island for the years 2019 and 2020.
  • Interactive time-series visualizations which capture the increase in crimes and their locations with progress in time.

All images and animations were generated using Python and Tableau. Data acquisition was aided by Columbia University and RICADV.

Note: Cover Image Source

Gender-Based Crime Comparison: 2019 and 2020

Visualizations of gender-based crimes in various US cities with street level detail and interactive features.

Rhode Island: Providence Weekly Reports 2019

The weekly reports of sex offences in 2019 in Providence as reported by the Police Department have been plotted. There are spikes during months like March, June, August and October.

Rhode Island: Providence Weekly Reports 2020

Similarly, the weekly reports of sex offences in 2020 were plotted in order to compare the spikes with 2019. The spikes are significantly lower in the first half of 2020, which we estimate to be due to the lockdown imposed. This would cause more people to stay indoors, thus driving up cases of domestic violence as tracked by hotline reports as opposed to crimes on the streets. We also see an increase in the subsequent months, possibly due to the relaxation of lockdown rules. At the time of this study, it was possible to plot only the first 30 weeks of 2020.

Rhode Island Hotline Calls

We visualized hotline call data obtained from the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (RICADV) and drew comparisons between 2019 and 2020. As seen, there is an increase in the hotline reports from February to June 2020, as expected from the lockdown rules. This gives a clear indication of the increase in domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Time Series Visualization

Visualizing each city's crime rates with the help of date of occurrence and location, we generate time-series based interactive visualizations which allow us to view the rate of increase of gender-based crimes as time progresses from 2019 to 2020. Click on the links to view an example of the time-series visualization for Ann Arbor.

Other Work

Some of our other work includes:

  • She Belongs Podcast: Check out our podcast - She Belongs which aims to raise awareness and kickstart the conversation about gender inequity and why women belong at the table. You can find all episodes on YouTube, Spotify, Medium and other podcast platforms.