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Frequency of respondents who reported observing specific recommended safeguards to prevent COVID-19 among respondents who reported gathering with people outside their immediate household over Thanksgiving and the winter holidays. The six feet apart question was not asked in the winter holiday survey
Source publication
Prevention behaviors represent important public health tools to limit spread of SARS-CoV-2. Adherence with recommended public health prevention behaviors among 20000 + members of a COVID-19 syndromic surveillance cohort from the mid-Atlantic and southeastern United States was assessed via electronic survey following the 2020 Thanksgiving and winter...
Citations
... When it comes to mask-wearing, people's judgment of others, perception of norms, and perceived judgment by others are all more lenient among familiar others than among unfamiliar others. These results explain in part why large outbreaks of COVID occurred after holidays where people gathered with friends/family (Peacock et al., 2021). ...
Face mask‐wearing is important for reducing COVID‐19 spread. Masking is a publicly visible behavior and thus, social factors such as descriptive and personal norms, risk images, and impression management concerns are salient and likely influential. Study 1 ( N = 381) surveyed participants during the early stages of the pandemic, assessing correlational relationships between social factors and masking intentions. Study 2 ( N = 778) replicated Study 1 at a later stage in the pandemic and experimentally manipulated the group to which norms and risk images referred—familiar, unfamiliar, or general others. Study 1 findings revealed that perceived descriptive norms, personal norms, and risk images, together strongly related to face mask‐wearing independent of COVID‐19 threat perception. Study 2 results revealed that people's impressions of non‐mask wearers were less negative and their perceptions of mask‐wearing less normative among familiar versus unfamiliar others. People were also less likely to wear masks among familiar versus unfamiliar others. These results indicate that specific care should be taken to develop interventions that will increase masking in the presence of familiar others.
... Two subnational surveys find that younger aged persons (<35 years) engaged in relatively more holiday gatherings with non-family members. 8 But these surveys under-represented low-SES persons as well as racial/ethnic minorities and therefore could not address holiday behaviors across these important groups. 8 We build on this previous work in two important ways. ...
... 8 But these surveys under-represented low-SES persons as well as racial/ethnic minorities and therefore could not address holiday behaviors across these important groups. 8 We build on this previous work in two important ways. First, we use a nationally representative study of US adults to examine the associations between SES and race/ethnicity and 2020 holiday gathering behavior. ...
... The pattern of racial/ethnic results observed in our nationwide study, which controlled for a detailed set of pre-holiday behaviors related to COVID-19, appears similar to sub-national studies of holiday behavior. 8 A limitation of our study, however, involves the inability to assess whether enactment of safer holiday behaviors among racial/ethnic minorities reduced the spread of novel COVID-19 infection. Whereas the assumption that avoidance of "spreader" events such as holiday gatherings could reduce transmission, information on these dynamics of transmission were not collected. ...
Objective
COVID-19 in the US disproportionately affected, and continues to affect, racial/ethnic minorities. Although risky social gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2020 contributed substantially to the “winter surge” in cases and deaths, no research examines potential racial/ethnic differences in behaviors related to holiday gatherings.
Design: We used the Understanding America Survey (UAS) - Coronavirus Tracking, a nationally representative study of US adults, to examine associations between race/ethnicity and risky holiday gathering behavior (i.e., gathering with non-household members and with little to no social distancing or mask-wearing). We applied logistic regression models to examine racial/ethnic and socioeconomic differences in risky holiday gatherings while accounting for a person’s pre-holiday perception of COVID-19 risk as well as related behaviors.
Results
Non-Hispanic Black adults showed a lower prevalence of attending a risky Thanksgiving gathering than did non-Hispanic White adults (15% vs, 43%, p<.001). The magnitude of this racial/ethnic difference was also found for risky Christmas gatherings. Hispanic and “Other” race/ethnicity adults also appeared less likely than non-Hispanic whites to attend a risky holiday gathering. Higher-income households attended a risky holiday gathering more frequently, when compared with lower income households (p<.001). Logistic regression results, which controlled for other COVID-19 related behaviors, support these main findings.
Conclusions
Racial/ethnic minorities, and non-Hispanic Black adults in particular, appeared least likely to have engaged in risky holiday gatherings in late 2020. If replicated, our findings appear consistent with the notion that behavioral modification among racial/ethnic minorities may have reduced the intensity of the 2020/21 “winter surge” in COVID-19.
... Members of both privileged and marginalised communities have all struggled with increased social isolation and loneliness during the pandemic (Liu et al., 2020); however, our findings suggest that friend-focused social support networks in White straight individuals may be the least likely to experience the negative social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. One possible explanation is that some White straight individuals perceive less personal risk for COVID-19, have better access to resources (e.g., health care, social capital), and reside in less crowded communities (Nino et al., 2021;Vargas et al., 2021), so they may be less likely to adhere to public health policies and guidance, such as social distancing (Nino et al., 2021;Peacock et al., 2022). Consequently, they may engage in more social gatherings with friends, which can enrich and enhance their friend-focused social support networks (Peacock et al., 2022). ...
... One possible explanation is that some White straight individuals perceive less personal risk for COVID-19, have better access to resources (e.g., health care, social capital), and reside in less crowded communities (Nino et al., 2021;Vargas et al., 2021), so they may be less likely to adhere to public health policies and guidance, such as social distancing (Nino et al., 2021;Peacock et al., 2022). Consequently, they may engage in more social gatherings with friends, which can enrich and enhance their friend-focused social support networks (Peacock et al., 2022). ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought social injustice and inequalities to the forefront of global public health. Members of marginalised communities, such as racial/ethnic and sexual minorities, and persons with disabilities, have been shown to be more vulnerable to certain consequences of the pandemic. Research suggests a protective role of social support in health and wellness promotion, yet little is known about the disparities in specific social support sources (i.e., family, friends, and a significant other) between marginalised populations and their counterparts. Also unclear is the role of intersections of these marginalised identities in social support structures affected by the pandemic. Hence, it is crucial to capture and characterise such differences and intersectionality in order to address social inequalities in a time of global crisis. To that end, we surveyed U.S. adults across 45 states to examine their social support from family, friends, and a significant other. Results revealed the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on social support among racial/ethnic and sexual minorities and persons with disabilities. Additionally, we found that White individuals with a marginalised identity received less social support than their White counterparts but received a similar level of social support when compared with racial/ethnic minorities without additional marginalised identities. This article seeks to elucidate the social support disparities associated with disproportionately increased social isolation for marginalised populations due to socioeconomic disadvantages. Specific recommendations are provided for addressing issues around social disparities and inequalities. With the experience and awareness attained working with marginalised populations, mental health professionals, public health officials, and community stakeholders should be poised to attend to social capital inequalities for diversity, equity, and inclusion now and in the post-pandemic era.
... As the world returns to much anticipated 'normalcy', more relaxed individual attitudes to SARS-CoV-2 can be observed in terms of preventative behaviours [60][61][62] . Fuelled by removal of mask mandates by governments and greater attention shifting to vaccination drives, attitudes towards hand hygiene can be expected to decline when compliance in this space cannot be regulated in community settings. ...
The emergence and spread of a novel coronavirus designated as SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019 undeniably precipitated the greatest public health disaster of this new millennium. In absence of an available vaccine or virus-specific anti-viral drug, global health authorities issued several public advisories at the beginning of the pandemic and recommended mitigation measures based on the accumulating evidence and growing knowledge of the spread of this respiratory virus largely through airborne droplets and fomites. The recommended measures emphasized practicing respiratory, hand, and surface hygiene to break the chain of infection and reduce transmission of the virus. As a result of these recommendations, consumer products such as soap bars, liquid cleansers, alcohol-based hand sanitizers, oral rinses, and surface cleaners, in addition to masks (surgical, N95, etc) became the most sought-after commodities in markets across the globe. Beyond the public health recommendations, it was incumbent upon the manufacturers of such consumer products to substantiate their product efficacy against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and later variants as they emerged, to ensure that the public confidence in the effectiveness of these products was not misplaced. In this article we will review the standard test methodologies and their scientific robustness to determine virucidal efficacy, as well as their relevance to consumer usage; discuss the contributory ingredients in each class of personal care formulations and their mechanisms of virucidal action; and establish the importance of the fully formulated products to ensure they are efficacious under consumer habit-oriented usage. Additionally, we will highlight the impact of hand, body, and oral hygiene practices and compliance in infection control for COVID-19 and their relevance for future outbreaks. Last but not the least, we will provide an overview of the existing regulatory challenges for claiming virucidal benefits from personal care formulations and propose ways in which opportunities to disclose proven benefits of these formulations would be beneficial to the public at large in sustaining efforts towards personal hygiene practices for infection prevention.
... Likewise, they observed high rates of face mask using in April. Then, in May, this increased further among non-Hispanic black, Hispanic or Latinos, and non-Hispanic of another race (Peacock et al., 2021). Similarly, adherence to different CMS also differs, with the use of a mask and hand washing being the most frequent practices as shown by some studies in Brazil and China (Tong et al., 2020;Lima-Costa et al., 2020;Lennon et al., 2020). ...
Introduction:
Community mitigation strategies (CMS) have demonstrated to be effective in the reduction of transmission and incidence of COVID-19, especially in the population with symptoms associated with the disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between the presence of COVID-19 symptoms and adherence to CMS in Latin American adults.
Methods:
We carried out a secondary analysis of a database developed by the University of Maryland and Facebook social network during the COVID-19 pandemic. We included Latin American adults that used the Facebook platform and participated in a survey conducted from April 23 to May 23, 2020. The principal outcome variable was reported compliance with the three main CMS (physical distancing, use of face masks, and hand washing). The exposure variable included symptoms suspicious for COVID-19 defined as the presence of three or more symptoms of an acute clinical case of COVID-19. We performed generalized linear models of the Poisson family with a logarithmic link function to evaluate the association between the presence of COVID-19 symptoms and reported compliance with CMS. We calculated crude and adjusted prevalence ratios (PR) with their 95% confidence intervals (95%CI).
Results:
We analyzed 1,310,690 adults from Latin America; 48.1% were male and 42.9% were under 35 years of age. The prevalence of suspicious symptoms of COVID-19 was 18.5% and reported compliance with the three CMS was 45.3%. The countries with the highest proportion of reported compliance with the three CMS were Peru, Bolivia and Panama, while those with the lowest reported compliance were Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras. In the adjusted model, people with suspicious symptoms for COVID-19 had a 14% lower compliance with the three CMS (aPR = 0.86; 95%CI: 0.85-0.87; p < 0.001).
Conclusions:
Less than half of the participants complied with the CMS, and those presenting suspicious symptoms for COVID-19 had lower reported compliance with the three CMS.
When COVID-19 was first introduced to the United States, state and local governments enacted a variety of policies intended to mitigate the virulence of the epidemic. At the time, the most effective measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 included stay-at-home orders, closing of nonessential businesses, and mask mandates. Although it was well known that regions with high population density and cold climates were at the highest risk for disease spread, rural counties that are economically reliant on tourism were incentivized to enact fewer precautions against COVID-19. The uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, the multiple policies to reduce transmission, and the changes in outdoor recreation behavior had a significant impact on rural tourism destinations and management of protected spaces. We utilize fine-scale incidence and demographic data to study the relationship between local economic and political concerns, COVID-19 mitigation measures, and the subsequent severity of outbreaks throughout the continental United States. We also present results from an online survey that measured travel behavior, health risk perceptions, knowledge and experience with COVID-19, and evaluation of destination attributes by 407 out-of-state visitors who traveled to Maine from 2020 to 2021. We synthesize this research to present a narrative on how perceptions of COVID-19 risk and public perceptions of rural tourism put certain communities at greater risk of illness throughout 2020. This research could inform future rural destination management and public health policies to help reduce negative socioeconomic, health and environmental impacts of pandemic-derived changes in travel and outdoor recreation behavior.
The COVID-19 Community Research Partnership (CCRP) is a multisite surveillance platform designed to characterize the epidemiology of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This manuscript describes the CCRP study design and methodology. The CCRP includes two prospective cohorts, one with six health systems in the mid-Atlantic and southern United States, and the other with six health systems in North Carolina. With enrollment beginning April 2020, sites invited persons within their healthcare systems as well as community members to participate in daily surveillance for symptoms of COVID-like illnesses, testing and risk behaviors. Participants with electronic health records were also asked to volunteer data access. Subsets of participants, representative of the general population and including oversampling of populations of interest, were selected for repeated at home serology testing. By October 2021, 65,739 participants (62,261 adult and 3,478 pediatric) were enrolled, with 89% providing syndromic data, 74% providing EHR data, and 70% participating in one of two serology sub-studies. An average of 62% of participants completed a daily survey at least once a week, and 55% of serology kits were returned. The CCRP provides rich regional epidemiologic data and the opportunity to more fully characterize the risks and sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had major direct impacts on health, including hundreds of millions of cases and nearly five million deaths as of October 2021. Advances in data availability, informatics, visualization, and modeling have made it relatively simple to track the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths across the course of the pandemic. More difficult to measure are the many indirect impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the response to it. Canceled medical appointments, missed routine screenings, disruptions to routine immunization schedules, and interruptions to critical preventative health services like childhood lead screening have all occurred as a result of the pandemic and the global public health and healthcare response to it. In addition to the impacts on access to healthcare and public health essential services, the COVID-19 pandemic has had major impacts on employment, childcare, food security, and mental health that have direct and indirect effects on health now and for many years into the future.
Since late 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread globally, causing a pandemic (coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19) with dire consequences, including widespread death, long-term illness, and societal and economic disruption. Although initially uncertain, evidence is now overwhelming that SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted primarily through small respiratory droplets and aerosols emitted by infected individuals. As a result, many effective nonpharmaceutical interventions for slowing virus transmission operate by blocking, filtering, or diluting respiratory aerosol, particularly in indoor environments. In this review, we discuss the evidence for airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and implications for engineering solutions to reduce transmission risk.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Volume 13 is October 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
The COVID-19 Community Research Partnership (CCRP) is a multisite surveillance platform designed to characterize the epidemiology of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. This manuscript describes the CCRP study design and methodology. The CCRP includes two prospective cohorts, one with six health systems in the mid-Atlantic and southern United States, and the other with six health systems in North Carolina. With enrollment beginning April 2020, sites invited persons within their healthcare systems as well as community members to participate in daily surveillance for symptoms of COVID-like illnesses, testing and risk behaviors. Participants with electronic health records were also asked to volunteer data access. Subsets of participants, representative of the general population and including oversampling of populations of interest, were selected for repeated at home serology testing. By October 2021, 65,739 participants (62,261 adult and 3,478 pediatric) were enrolled with 89% providing syndromic data, 74% providing EHR data, and 70% participating in one of two serology sub-studies. An average of 62% of participants completed a daily survey at least once a week, and 55% of serology kits were returned. The CCRP provides rich regional epidemiologic data and opportunities to more fully characterize the risks and sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
