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Who is accessing community lateral flow device testing and why? Characteristics and motivations of individuals participating in COVID-19 community testing in two English local authority areas
BACKGROUND: Antigen testing using lateral flow devices (LFDs) plays an important role in the management of the novel coronavirus pandemic of 2019 (COVID-19) by rapidly identifying individuals who are asymptomatically carrying high levels of the virus. By January 2021, LFD community testing sites wer...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8956328/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35337297 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12986-4 |
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author | Dalili, Michael N. Long, Jo Wadley, Emma Sloan, Jack Cross, Andrew Thomas, Kyla H. Morgan, Gemma |
author_facet | Dalili, Michael N. Long, Jo Wadley, Emma Sloan, Jack Cross, Andrew Thomas, Kyla H. Morgan, Gemma |
author_sort | Dalili, Michael N. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Antigen testing using lateral flow devices (LFDs) plays an important role in the management of the novel coronavirus pandemic of 2019 (COVID-19) by rapidly identifying individuals who are asymptomatically carrying high levels of the virus. By January 2021, LFD community testing sites were set up across English local authority areas to support the management and containment of regional COVID-19 cases, initially targeting essential workers unable to work from home during the national lockdown. This study aimed to examine the characteristics and motivations of individuals accessing community LFD testing across two local authority areas (LAAs) in the South West of England. METHODS: Data were collected as part of a service evaluation from December 22(nd) 2020 until March 15(th) 2021 for two LAAs. Demographic and postcode data were collected from an online test appointment booking platform and the National Health Service testing service online system, with data accessed from Public Health England. An online survey was sent to individuals who made a testing appointment at an LAA1 site using the online booking platform, consisting of 12 questions to collect data on individual’s motivations for and experiences of testing. RESULTS: Data were available for individuals who completed 12,516 tests in LAA1 and 12,327 tests in LAA2. Most individuals who engaged with testing were female, working age, white, and worked as early years or education staff, health and social care staff, and supermarket or food production staff. 1249 individuals completed the survey with 60% of respondents reported getting tested for work-related reasons. Individuals first heard about LFD testing through various channels including work, media, and word of mouth, and decided to get tested based on the ease and convenience of testing, workplace communications, and to identify asymptomatic cases to help stop the spread. Most tests were completed by individuals living in less deprived areas based on national deciles of deprivation. CONCLUSIONS: While national and local COVID-19 testing strategies have evolved, community and personal LFD testing remains a crucial pillar of the testing strategy. Future studies should collect quantitative and qualitative data from residents to most effectively shape testing offers based on the needs and preferences of their population. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-12986-4. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8956328 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-89563282022-03-27 Who is accessing community lateral flow device testing and why? Characteristics and motivations of individuals participating in COVID-19 community testing in two English local authority areas Dalili, Michael N. Long, Jo Wadley, Emma Sloan, Jack Cross, Andrew Thomas, Kyla H. Morgan, Gemma BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Antigen testing using lateral flow devices (LFDs) plays an important role in the management of the novel coronavirus pandemic of 2019 (COVID-19) by rapidly identifying individuals who are asymptomatically carrying high levels of the virus. By January 2021, LFD community testing sites were set up across English local authority areas to support the management and containment of regional COVID-19 cases, initially targeting essential workers unable to work from home during the national lockdown. This study aimed to examine the characteristics and motivations of individuals accessing community LFD testing across two local authority areas (LAAs) in the South West of England. METHODS: Data were collected as part of a service evaluation from December 22(nd) 2020 until March 15(th) 2021 for two LAAs. Demographic and postcode data were collected from an online test appointment booking platform and the National Health Service testing service online system, with data accessed from Public Health England. An online survey was sent to individuals who made a testing appointment at an LAA1 site using the online booking platform, consisting of 12 questions to collect data on individual’s motivations for and experiences of testing. RESULTS: Data were available for individuals who completed 12,516 tests in LAA1 and 12,327 tests in LAA2. Most individuals who engaged with testing were female, working age, white, and worked as early years or education staff, health and social care staff, and supermarket or food production staff. 1249 individuals completed the survey with 60% of respondents reported getting tested for work-related reasons. Individuals first heard about LFD testing through various channels including work, media, and word of mouth, and decided to get tested based on the ease and convenience of testing, workplace communications, and to identify asymptomatic cases to help stop the spread. Most tests were completed by individuals living in less deprived areas based on national deciles of deprivation. CONCLUSIONS: While national and local COVID-19 testing strategies have evolved, community and personal LFD testing remains a crucial pillar of the testing strategy. Future studies should collect quantitative and qualitative data from residents to most effectively shape testing offers based on the needs and preferences of their population. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-12986-4. BioMed Central 2022-03-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8956328/ /pubmed/35337297 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12986-4 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 Dalili, Michael N. Long, Jo Wadley, Emma Sloan, Jack Cross, Andrew Thomas, Kyla H. Morgan, Gemma Who is accessing community lateral flow device testing and why? Characteristics and motivations of individuals participating in COVID-19 community testing in two English local authority areas |
title | Who is accessing community lateral flow device testing and why? Characteristics and motivations of individuals participating in COVID-19 community testing in two English local authority areas |
title_full | Who is accessing community lateral flow device testing and why? Characteristics and motivations of individuals participating in COVID-19 community testing in two English local authority areas |
title_fullStr | Who is accessing community lateral flow device testing and why? Characteristics and motivations of individuals participating in COVID-19 community testing in two English local authority areas |
title_full_unstemmed | Who is accessing community lateral flow device testing and why? Characteristics and motivations of individuals participating in COVID-19 community testing in two English local authority areas |
title_short | Who is accessing community lateral flow device testing and why? Characteristics and motivations of individuals participating in COVID-19 community testing in two English local authority areas |
title_sort | who is accessing community lateral flow device testing and why? characteristics and motivations of individuals participating in covid-19 community testing in two english local authority areas |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8956328/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35337297 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12986-4 |
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