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 holiday (WH) seasons. Respondents were predominantly non-Hispanic Whites (90%), female (60%), and ≥ 50 years old (59%). Non-household members (NHM) were present at 47.1% of Thanksgiving gatherings and 69.3% of WH gatherings. Women were more likely than men to gather with NHM (p < 0.0001). Attending gatherings with NHM decreased with older age (Thanksgiving: 60.0% of participants aged < 30 years to 36.3% aged ≥ 70 years [p-trend < 0.0001]; WH: 81.6% of those < 30 years to 61.0% of those ≥ 70 years [p-trend < 0.0001]). Non-Hispanic Whites were more likely to gather with NHM than were Hispanics or non-Hispanic Blacks (p < 0.0001). Mask wearing, reported by 37.3% at Thanksgiving and 41.9% during the WH, was more common among older participants, non-Hispanic Blacks, and Hispanics when gatherings included NHM. In this survey, most people did not fully adhere to recommended public health safety behaviors when attending holiday gatherings. It remains unknown to what extent failure to observe these recommendations may have contributed to the COVID-19 surges observed following Thanksgiving and the winter holidays in the United States.
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.
Perioperative nurses are responsible for generating and using evidence to improve patient care. To protect human participants during research activities, government regulations enacted after widely publicized research misconduct specify that institutions receiving federal funds must have an institutional review board (IRB) comprising at least five members. Board members have many responsibilities, including completing a thorough review of each section of the application and attachments (eg, consent documents). To expedite the IRB approval processes, applicants should create and submit a well‐written application. Applicants should understand that the application addresses the important ethical concepts of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. Quality improvement activities (ie, local activities that seek to improve patient care or clinical outcomes) differ from research activities that focus on creating new knowledge. Depending on the purpose, design, and generalizability of a quality improvement project, the applicant may need to submit the project to the IRB for approval.
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