Web and phone-based COVID-19 syndromic surveillance in Canada: A cross-sectional study
BACKGROUND: Syndromic surveillance through web or phone-based polling has been used to track the course of infectious diseases worldwide. Our study objective was to describe the characteristics, symptoms, and self-reported testing rates of respondents in three different COVID-19 symptom surveys in C...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:7531838 2023-05-15T16:16:52+02:00 Web and phone-based COVID-19 syndromic surveillance in Canada: A cross-sectional study Lapointe-Shaw, Lauren Rader, Benjamin Astley, Christina M. Hawkins, Jared B. Bhatia, Deepit Schatten, William J. Lee, Todd C. Liu, Jessica J. Ivers, Noah M. Stall, Nathan M. Gournis, Effie Tuite, Ashleigh R. Fisman, David N. Bogoch, Isaac I. Brownstein, John S. 2020-10-02 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7531838/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33006990 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239886 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7531838/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33006990 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239886 © 2020 Lapointe-Shaw et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY PLoS One Research Article Text 2020 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239886 2020-10-11T00:27:56Z BACKGROUND: Syndromic surveillance through web or phone-based polling has been used to track the course of infectious diseases worldwide. Our study objective was to describe the characteristics, symptoms, and self-reported testing rates of respondents in three different COVID-19 symptom surveys in Canada. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study using three distinct Canada-wide web-based surveys, and phone polling in Ontario. All three sources contained self-reported information on COVID-19 symptoms and testing. In addition to describing respondent characteristics, we examined symptom frequency and the testing rate among the symptomatic, as well as rates of symptoms and testing across respondent groups. RESULTS: We found that over March- April 2020, 1.6% of respondents experienced a symptom on the day of their survey, 15% of Ontario households had a symptom in the previous week, and 44% of Canada-wide respondents had a symptom in the previous month. Across the three surveys, SARS-CoV-2-testing was reported in 2–9% of symptomatic responses. Women, younger and middle-aged adults (versus older adults) and Indigenous/First nations/Inuit/Métis were more likely to report at least one symptom, and visible minorities were more likely to report the combination of fever with cough or shortness of breath. INTERPRETATION: The low rate of testing among those reporting symptoms suggests significant opportunity to expand testing among community-dwelling residents of Canada. Syndromic surveillance data can supplement public health reports and provide much-needed context to gauge the adequacy of SARS-CoV-2 testing rates. Text First Nations inuit PubMed Central (PMC) Canada PLOS ONE 15 10 e0239886 |
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Research Article Lapointe-Shaw, Lauren Rader, Benjamin Astley, Christina M. Hawkins, Jared B. Bhatia, Deepit Schatten, William J. Lee, Todd C. Liu, Jessica J. Ivers, Noah M. Stall, Nathan M. Gournis, Effie Tuite, Ashleigh R. Fisman, David N. Bogoch, Isaac I. Brownstein, John S. Web and phone-based COVID-19 syndromic surveillance in Canada: A cross-sectional study |
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Research Article |
description |
BACKGROUND: Syndromic surveillance through web or phone-based polling has been used to track the course of infectious diseases worldwide. Our study objective was to describe the characteristics, symptoms, and self-reported testing rates of respondents in three different COVID-19 symptom surveys in Canada. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study using three distinct Canada-wide web-based surveys, and phone polling in Ontario. All three sources contained self-reported information on COVID-19 symptoms and testing. In addition to describing respondent characteristics, we examined symptom frequency and the testing rate among the symptomatic, as well as rates of symptoms and testing across respondent groups. RESULTS: We found that over March- April 2020, 1.6% of respondents experienced a symptom on the day of their survey, 15% of Ontario households had a symptom in the previous week, and 44% of Canada-wide respondents had a symptom in the previous month. Across the three surveys, SARS-CoV-2-testing was reported in 2–9% of symptomatic responses. Women, younger and middle-aged adults (versus older adults) and Indigenous/First nations/Inuit/Métis were more likely to report at least one symptom, and visible minorities were more likely to report the combination of fever with cough or shortness of breath. INTERPRETATION: The low rate of testing among those reporting symptoms suggests significant opportunity to expand testing among community-dwelling residents of Canada. Syndromic surveillance data can supplement public health reports and provide much-needed context to gauge the adequacy of SARS-CoV-2 testing rates. |
format |
Text |
author |
Lapointe-Shaw, Lauren Rader, Benjamin Astley, Christina M. Hawkins, Jared B. Bhatia, Deepit Schatten, William J. Lee, Todd C. Liu, Jessica J. Ivers, Noah M. Stall, Nathan M. Gournis, Effie Tuite, Ashleigh R. Fisman, David N. Bogoch, Isaac I. Brownstein, John S. |
author_facet |
Lapointe-Shaw, Lauren Rader, Benjamin Astley, Christina M. Hawkins, Jared B. Bhatia, Deepit Schatten, William J. Lee, Todd C. Liu, Jessica J. Ivers, Noah M. Stall, Nathan M. Gournis, Effie Tuite, Ashleigh R. Fisman, David N. Bogoch, Isaac I. Brownstein, John S. |
author_sort |
Lapointe-Shaw, Lauren |
title |
Web and phone-based COVID-19 syndromic surveillance in Canada: A cross-sectional study |
title_short |
Web and phone-based COVID-19 syndromic surveillance in Canada: A cross-sectional study |
title_full |
Web and phone-based COVID-19 syndromic surveillance in Canada: A cross-sectional study |
title_fullStr |
Web and phone-based COVID-19 syndromic surveillance in Canada: A cross-sectional study |
title_full_unstemmed |
Web and phone-based COVID-19 syndromic surveillance in Canada: A cross-sectional study |
title_sort |
web and phone-based covid-19 syndromic surveillance in canada: a cross-sectional study |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7531838/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33006990 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239886 |
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Canada |
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Canada |
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First Nations inuit |
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First Nations inuit |
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PLoS One |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7531838/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33006990 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239886 |
op_rights |
© 2020 Lapointe-Shaw et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239886 |
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PLOS ONE |
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