Formulation of a departmental COVID-19 contingency plan for contact tracing and facilities management

Mak, ST; Fung, Kitty S. C.; Li, Kenneth K. W.

doi:10.12809/hkmj208670

Cited by 2 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…We retrieved a total of 1638 studies. After duplicate removal and title abstract selection, 130 full texts were assessed, and 17 of them were included in the narrative synthesis [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] (Figure 1).…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All included papers were descriptive accounts of CT strategies implemented in various settings, except for a qualitative study [25]. A total of 8 studies were conducted in the United States [26,27,[29][30][31][32]36,41], 3 in Asia [34,35,39], 3 in Europe [33,37,40], 2 in Africa [25,28], and 1 in Australia [38].…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One study reported information on implemented CT strategies disaggregated for the first and second waves [33], and 1 study did not clearly report the timing when the CT model was implemented [35]. A total of 10 studies described organizational models implemented by national or local governments or public health agencies [25,26,28,29,31,[37][38][39][40][41].…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A total of 10 studies described organizational models implemented by national or local governments or public health agencies [25,26,28,29,31,[37][38][39][40][41]. The remaining studies described strategies implemented locally in specific contexts [27,30,[32][33][34][35][36]. In addition, 7 studies targeted the general population [25][26][27][28][29][30][31], and the remaining 10 studies described CT activities carried out in specific population subgroups (workers, travelers, and vulnerable populations) [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41].…”

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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COVID-19 Contact Tracing Strategies During the First Wave of the Pandemic: Systematic Review of Published Studies

Amicosante¹,

Rosso²,

Bernardini³

et al. 2023

JMIR Public Health Surveill

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Background Contact tracing (CT) represented one of the core activities for the prevention and control of COVID-19 in the early phase of the pandemic. Several guidance documents were developed by international public health agencies and national authorities on the organization of COVID-19 CT activities. While most research on CT focused on the use digital tools or relied on modelling techniques to estimate the efficacy of interventions, poor evidence is available on the real-world implementation of CT strategies and on the organizational models adopted during the initial phase of the emergency to set up CT activities. Objective We aimed to provide a comprehensive picture of the organizational aspects of CT activities during the first wave of the pandemic through the systematic identification and description of CT strategies used in different settings during the period from March to June 2020. Methods A systematic review of published studies describing organizational models of COVID-19 CT strategies developed in real-world settings was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement. PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library were searched. Studies not providing a description of the organizational aspects of CT strategies and studies reporting or modelling theoretical strategies or focusing on the description of digital technologies’ properties were excluded. Quality of reporting was assessed by using the Template for Intervention Description and Replication Checklist for Population Health and Policy. We developed a narrative synthesis, using a conceptual framework to map the extracted studies broken down by target population. Results We retrieved a total of 1638 studies, of which 17 were included in the narrative synthesis; 7 studies targeted the general population and 10 studies described CT activities carried out in specific population subgroups. Our review identified some common elements across studies used to develop CT activities, including decentralization of CT activities, involvement of trained nonpublic health resources (eg, university students or civil servants), use of informatics tools for CT management, interagency collaboration, and community engagement. CT strategies implemented in the workplace envisaged a strong collaboration with occupational health services. Outreach activities were shown to increase CT efficiency in susceptible groups, such as people experiencing homelessness. Data on the effectiveness of CT strategies are scarce, with only few studies reporting on key performance indicators. Conclusions Despite the lack of systematically collected data on CT effectiveness, our findings can provide some indication for the future planning and development of CT strategies for infectious disease control, mainly in terms of coordination mechanisms and the use of human and technical resources needed for the rapid development of CT activities. Further research on the organizational models of CT strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic would be required to contribute to a more robust evidence-making process.

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Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

COVID-19 Contact Tracing Strategies During the First Wave of the Pandemic: Systematic Review of Published Studies

Amicosante¹,

Rosso²,

Bernardini³

et al. 2023

JMIR Public Health Surveill

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Epidemiology and public health studies with forecasting ability can guide public policies. The Journal has published research articles on experiences of a temporary testing centre at the AsiaWorld-Expo, 22 department-level contingency plans for contact tracing and facility management, 23 and admission triage for adult intensive care. 24 The waning fifth COVID wave gives us muchneeded breathing space to plan ahead.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%