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Prevalence of risk behaviors and correlates of SARS-CoV-2 positivity among in-school contacts of confirmed cases in a Georgia school district in the pre-vaccine era, December 2020–January 2021

BACKGROUND: There is a continuing risk for COVID-19 transmission in school settings while transmission is ongoing in the community, particularly among unvaccinated populations. To ensure that schools continue to operate safely and to inform implementation of prevention strategies, it is imperative t...

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Autores principales: Hast, Marisa, Swanson, Megan, Scott, Colleen, Oraka, Emeka, Espinosa, Catherine, Burnett, Eleanor, Kukielka, Esther A., Rice, Marion E., Mehari, Lemlem, McCloud, Jazmyn, Miller, Danielle, Franklin, Rachel, Tate, Jacqueline E., Kirking, Hannah L., Morris, Elana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8759220/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35031000
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-12347-7
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author Hast, Marisa
Swanson, Megan
Scott, Colleen
Oraka, Emeka
Espinosa, Catherine
Burnett, Eleanor
Kukielka, Esther A.
Rice, Marion E.
Mehari, Lemlem
McCloud, Jazmyn
Miller, Danielle
Franklin, Rachel
Tate, Jacqueline E.
Kirking, Hannah L.
Morris, Elana
author_facet Hast, Marisa
Swanson, Megan
Scott, Colleen
Oraka, Emeka
Espinosa, Catherine
Burnett, Eleanor
Kukielka, Esther A.
Rice, Marion E.
Mehari, Lemlem
McCloud, Jazmyn
Miller, Danielle
Franklin, Rachel
Tate, Jacqueline E.
Kirking, Hannah L.
Morris, Elana
author_sort Hast, Marisa
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: There is a continuing risk for COVID-19 transmission in school settings while transmission is ongoing in the community, particularly among unvaccinated populations. To ensure that schools continue to operate safely and to inform implementation of prevention strategies, it is imperative to gain better understanding of the risk behaviors of staff and students. This secondary analysis describes the prevalence of COVID-19 risk behaviors in an exposed population of students and school staff in the pre-vaccine era and identifies associations between these behaviors and testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. METHODS: From December 2020–January 2021, school staff and students exposed to confirmed COVID-19 cases in a Georgia school district were tested for SARS-CoV-2 and surveyed regarding risk behaviors in and out of school. Prevalence of risk behaviors was described by age group and school level, and associations with SARS-CoV-2 positivity were identified using chi squared tests. RESULTS: Overall, 717 students and 79 school staff participated in the investigation; SARS-CoV-2 positivity was 9.2%. In the 2 weeks prior to COVID-19 exposure, 24% of participants reported unmasked indoor time at school, 40% attended social gatherings with non-household members, and 71% visited out-of-school indoor locations, including 19% who ate indoors in restaurants. Frequencies of risk behaviors increased by age. Among students, 17% participated in school sports, of whom 86% participated without a mask. SARS-CoV-2 positivity was significantly associated with school sports and unmasked time in sports. Among K-5 students, positivity was associated with exposure to a teacher index case. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis highlights the high prevalence of risk behaviors in an unvaccinated population exposed to COVID-19 in school and identifies an association between student sports participation and SARS-CoV-2 positivity. These findings illustrate the importance of school-level prevention measures to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, including limiting close-contact indoor sports and promoting consistent mask use in unvaccinated individuals. Future research could explore the role of community vaccination programs as a strategy to reduce COVID-19 transmission and introductions into school settings. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-12347-7.
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spelling pubmed-87592202022-01-18 Prevalence of risk behaviors and correlates of SARS-CoV-2 positivity among in-school contacts of confirmed cases in a Georgia school district in the pre-vaccine era, December 2020–January 2021 Hast, Marisa Swanson, Megan Scott, Colleen Oraka, Emeka Espinosa, Catherine Burnett, Eleanor Kukielka, Esther A. Rice, Marion E. Mehari, Lemlem McCloud, Jazmyn Miller, Danielle Franklin, Rachel Tate, Jacqueline E. Kirking, Hannah L. Morris, Elana BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: There is a continuing risk for COVID-19 transmission in school settings while transmission is ongoing in the community, particularly among unvaccinated populations. To ensure that schools continue to operate safely and to inform implementation of prevention strategies, it is imperative to gain better understanding of the risk behaviors of staff and students. This secondary analysis describes the prevalence of COVID-19 risk behaviors in an exposed population of students and school staff in the pre-vaccine era and identifies associations between these behaviors and testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. METHODS: From December 2020–January 2021, school staff and students exposed to confirmed COVID-19 cases in a Georgia school district were tested for SARS-CoV-2 and surveyed regarding risk behaviors in and out of school. Prevalence of risk behaviors was described by age group and school level, and associations with SARS-CoV-2 positivity were identified using chi squared tests. RESULTS: Overall, 717 students and 79 school staff participated in the investigation; SARS-CoV-2 positivity was 9.2%. In the 2 weeks prior to COVID-19 exposure, 24% of participants reported unmasked indoor time at school, 40% attended social gatherings with non-household members, and 71% visited out-of-school indoor locations, including 19% who ate indoors in restaurants. Frequencies of risk behaviors increased by age. Among students, 17% participated in school sports, of whom 86% participated without a mask. SARS-CoV-2 positivity was significantly associated with school sports and unmasked time in sports. Among K-5 students, positivity was associated with exposure to a teacher index case. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis highlights the high prevalence of risk behaviors in an unvaccinated population exposed to COVID-19 in school and identifies an association between student sports participation and SARS-CoV-2 positivity. These findings illustrate the importance of school-level prevention measures to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, including limiting close-contact indoor sports and promoting consistent mask use in unvaccinated individuals. Future research could explore the role of community vaccination programs as a strategy to reduce COVID-19 transmission and introductions into school settings. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-12347-7. BioMed Central 2022-01-14 /pmc/articles/PMC8759220/ /pubmed/35031000 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-12347-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Hast, Marisa
Swanson, Megan
Scott, Colleen
Oraka, Emeka
Espinosa, Catherine
Burnett, Eleanor
Kukielka, Esther A.
Rice, Marion E.
Mehari, Lemlem
McCloud, Jazmyn
Miller, Danielle
Franklin, Rachel
Tate, Jacqueline E.
Kirking, Hannah L.
Morris, Elana
Prevalence of risk behaviors and correlates of SARS-CoV-2 positivity among in-school contacts of confirmed cases in a Georgia school district in the pre-vaccine era, December 2020–January 2021
title Prevalence of risk behaviors and correlates of SARS-CoV-2 positivity among in-school contacts of confirmed cases in a Georgia school district in the pre-vaccine era, December 2020–January 2021
title_full Prevalence of risk behaviors and correlates of SARS-CoV-2 positivity among in-school contacts of confirmed cases in a Georgia school district in the pre-vaccine era, December 2020–January 2021
title_fullStr Prevalence of risk behaviors and correlates of SARS-CoV-2 positivity among in-school contacts of confirmed cases in a Georgia school district in the pre-vaccine era, December 2020–January 2021
title_full_unstemmed Prevalence of risk behaviors and correlates of SARS-CoV-2 positivity among in-school contacts of confirmed cases in a Georgia school district in the pre-vaccine era, December 2020–January 2021
title_short Prevalence of risk behaviors and correlates of SARS-CoV-2 positivity among in-school contacts of confirmed cases in a Georgia school district in the pre-vaccine era, December 2020–January 2021
title_sort prevalence of risk behaviors and correlates of sars-cov-2 positivity among in-school contacts of confirmed cases in a georgia school district in the pre-vaccine era, december 2020–january 2021
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8759220/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35031000
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-12347-7
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