Integrating social services with disease investigation: A randomized trial of COVID-19 high-touch contact tracing.
COVID-19 exposed and exacerbated health disparities, and a core challenge has been how to adapt pandemic response and public health in light of these disproportionate health burdens. Responding to this challenge, the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department designed a model of "high-touch...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2023-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285752 |
| _version_ | 1797802038776561664 |
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| author | Lisa C Lu Derek Ouyang Alexis D'Agostino Angelica Diaz Sarah L Rudman Daniel E Ho |
| author_facet | Lisa C Lu Derek Ouyang Alexis D'Agostino Angelica Diaz Sarah L Rudman Daniel E Ho |
| author_sort | Lisa C Lu |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | COVID-19 exposed and exacerbated health disparities, and a core challenge has been how to adapt pandemic response and public health in light of these disproportionate health burdens. Responding to this challenge, the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department designed a model of "high-touch" contact tracing that integrated social services with disease investigation, providing continued support and resource linkage for clients from structurally vulnerable communities. We report results from a cluster randomized trial of 5,430 cases from February to May 2021 to assess the ability of high-touch contact tracing to aid with isolation and quarantine. Using individual-level data on resource referral and uptake outcomes, we find that the intervention, randomized assignment to the high-touch program, increased the referral rate to social services by 8.4% (95% confidence interval, 0.8%-15.9%) and the uptake rate by 4.9% (-0.2%-10.0%), with the most pronounced increases in referrals and uptake of food assistance. These findings demonstrate that social services can be effectively combined with contact tracing to better promote health equity, demonstrating a novel path for the future of public health. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-13T04:59:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5f0baa334e374294a15916e534f6ab5a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-13T04:59:39Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-5f0baa334e374294a15916e534f6ab5a2023-06-17T05:31:25ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032023-01-01185e028575210.1371/journal.pone.0285752Integrating social services with disease investigation: A randomized trial of COVID-19 high-touch contact tracing.Lisa C LuDerek OuyangAlexis D'AgostinoAngelica DiazSarah L RudmanDaniel E HoCOVID-19 exposed and exacerbated health disparities, and a core challenge has been how to adapt pandemic response and public health in light of these disproportionate health burdens. Responding to this challenge, the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department designed a model of "high-touch" contact tracing that integrated social services with disease investigation, providing continued support and resource linkage for clients from structurally vulnerable communities. We report results from a cluster randomized trial of 5,430 cases from February to May 2021 to assess the ability of high-touch contact tracing to aid with isolation and quarantine. Using individual-level data on resource referral and uptake outcomes, we find that the intervention, randomized assignment to the high-touch program, increased the referral rate to social services by 8.4% (95% confidence interval, 0.8%-15.9%) and the uptake rate by 4.9% (-0.2%-10.0%), with the most pronounced increases in referrals and uptake of food assistance. These findings demonstrate that social services can be effectively combined with contact tracing to better promote health equity, demonstrating a novel path for the future of public health.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285752 |
| spellingShingle | Lisa C Lu Derek Ouyang Alexis D'Agostino Angelica Diaz Sarah L Rudman Daniel E Ho Integrating social services with disease investigation: A randomized trial of COVID-19 high-touch contact tracing. PLoS ONE |
| title | Integrating social services with disease investigation: A randomized trial of COVID-19 high-touch contact tracing. |
| title_full | Integrating social services with disease investigation: A randomized trial of COVID-19 high-touch contact tracing. |
| title_fullStr | Integrating social services with disease investigation: A randomized trial of COVID-19 high-touch contact tracing. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Integrating social services with disease investigation: A randomized trial of COVID-19 high-touch contact tracing. |
| title_short | Integrating social services with disease investigation: A randomized trial of COVID-19 high-touch contact tracing. |
| title_sort | integrating social services with disease investigation a randomized trial of covid 19 high touch contact tracing |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285752 |
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