[policy, no patch] Explicitly cast all uses of database returned values

Problem/Motivation

Currently depending upon how a database connection is configured the following scenarios may occur:

• Only strings will be returned
• Integer like strings will be returned as integers, all other results returned as strings

Neither of these methods is guaranteed to match the intended use of the result.

Steps to reproduce

N/A

Proposed resolution

All new use of the database must explicitly cast to when the record is retrieved/used

Remaining tasks

User interface changes

None

API changes

None

Data model changes

None

Release notes snippet

None