Healthy Davis Together: Creating a Model for Community Control of COVID-19

Pollock, Brad H.; Bergheimer, Charlotte L; Nesbitt, Thomas S.; Stoltz, Tod; Belafsky, Sheri R; Burtis, Kenneth C.; Carey, Kelly; Nuño, Miriam A

doi:10.2105/ajph.2022.306880

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Saliva tests were conducted using an innovative high-throughput quantitative reverse transcriptase–PCR method [ 24 ]. Most tests (98.4%) comprised of saliva tests while the remaining 1.6% consisted of BinaxNOW (Abbott) rapid antigen tests administered to symptomatic individuals.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing SARS-CoV-2 Testing Adherence in a University Town: Recurrent Event Modeling Analysis

García,

Schmidt,

Solis

et al. 2024

JMIR Public Health Surveill

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Background Healthy Davis Together was a program launched in September 2020 in the city of Davis, California, to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and facilitate the return to normalcy. The program involved multiple interventions, including free saliva-based asymptomatic testing, targeted communication campaigns, education efforts, and distribution of personal protective equipment, community partnerships, and investments in the local economy. Objective This study identified demographic characteristics of individuals that underwent testing and assessed adherence to testing over time in a community pandemic-response program launched in a college town in California, United States. Methods This study outlines overall testing engagement, identifies demographic characteristics of participants, and evaluates testing participation changes over 4 periods of the COVID-19 pandemic, distinguished by the dominant variants Delta and Omicron. Additionally, a recurrent model is employed to explore testing patterns based on the participants’ frequency, timing, and demographic characteristics. Results A total of 770,165 tests were performed between November 18, 2020, and June 30, 2022, among 89,924 (41.1% of total population) residents of Yolo County, with significant participation from racially or ethnically diverse participants and across age groups. Most positive cases (6351 of total) and highest daily participation (895 per 100,000 population) were during the Omicron period. There were some gender and age-related differences in the pattern of recurrent COVID-19 testing. Men were slightly less likely (hazard ratio [HR] 0.969, 95% CI 0.943-0.996) to be retested and more likely (HR 1.104, 95% CI 1.075-1.134) to stop testing altogether than women. People aged between 20 and 34 years were less likely to be retested (HR 0.861, 95% CI 0.828-0.895) and more likely to stop testing altogether (HR 2.617, 95% CI 2.538-2.699). However, older age groups were less likely to stop testing, especially those aged between 65-74 years and 75-84 years, than those aged between 0 and 19 years. The likelihood of stopping testing was lower (HR 0.93, 95% CI 0.889-0.976) for the Asian group and higher for the Hispanic or Latino (HR 1.185, 95% CI 1.148-1.223) and Black or African American (HR 1.198, 95% CI 1.054-1.350) groups than the White group. Conclusions The unique features of a pandemic response program that supported community-wide access to free asymptomatic testing provide a unique opportunity to evaluate adherence to testing recommendations and testing trends over time. Identification of individual and group-level factors associated with testing behaviors can provide insights for identifying potential areas of improvement in future testing initiatives.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Healthy Davis Together (HDT) [ 24 ] was a program implemented in the city of Davis, California, as an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and facilitate the return to normalcy. Launched in September 2020, HDT focused on curtailing the pandemic burden among Davis residents and workers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing SARS-CoV-2 Testing Adherence in a University Town: Recurrent Event Modeling Analysis

García,

Schmidt,

Solis

et al. 2024

JMIR Public Health Surveill

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“…14 In addition to these expected roles, AHCs around the world filled important roles often envisioned as public health responsibilities. Several examples from the University of California Health, one of the health systems participating in the Council, include supporting comprehensive community testing, 15 providing community-based vaccine clinics, 16 monitoring wastewater for COVID-19, 17 and identifying disparities in community impact of COVID-19 to focus public health responses and resources. 18…”

Section: Key Duties Of the Chsomentioning

confidence: 99%

A Chief Health Security Officer for Every Academic Health Center: Improving Readiness, Response, Recovery, and Resilience

Maggio,

Byington,

Toner

et al. 2023

Academic Medicine

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Academic health centers (AHCs) require expertise to ensure readiness for health security events, such as cyberattacks, natural disasters, and pandemics, as well as the ability to respond to and recover from these events. However, most AHCs lack an individual to coordinate efforts at an enterprise level across academic and operational units during an emergency; elevate the coordination of individual AHCs with local and state public health entities; and through professional organizations, coordinate the work of AHCs across national and international public health entities. Informed by AHCs’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and a series of focused meetings in 2021 of the Association of Academic Health Centers President’s Council on Health Security, the authors propose creating a new C-suite role to meet these critical needs: the chief health security officer (CHSO). The CHSO would be responsible for the AHC’s overall health security and would report to the AHC’s chief executive officer or president. The authors describe the role of CHSO in relation to the preparation, response, and recovery phases of public health events necessary for health security. They also propose key duties for this position and encourage institutions to offer training and credentials to facilitate the creation and define the portfolios of CHSO positions at AHCs and beyond.

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“…HCVT established and supports WDS in disadvantaged and rural communities in California's Central Valley through partnerships with local public health departments, wastewater municipalities, and analytical laboratory partners. HCVT is an extension of WDS implemented in Davis, California through Healthy Davis Together (HDT) (19,20) in partnership with the Sewer Coronavirus Alert Network (SCAN) (21). WWTPs were selected from communities with high COVID-19 infection rates, below average vaccination rates (based on fully vaccinated individuals), and from public health department recommendations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, a greater number of cases were counted in Yolo County in Wave 1 compared to Merced and Stanislaus Counties. From November 2020 through June 2022, Yolo County and the city of Davis offered community-wide, free clinical testing services through Healthy Yolo Together (HYT) and HDT(19). Participation in each program was high, even for asymptomatic individuals, leading to more comprehensive case counts.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Expansion of wastewater-based disease surveillance to improve health equity in California’s Central Valley: sequential shifts in case-to-wastewater and hospitalization-to-wastewater ratios

Kadonsky

Naughton

Susa

et al. 2023

Front. Public Health

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IntroductionOver a third of the communities (39%) in the Central Valley of California, a richly diverse and important agricultural region, are classified as disadvantaged—with inadequate access to healthcare, lower socio-economic status, and higher exposure to air and water pollution. The majority of racial and ethnic minorities are also at higher risk of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and death according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Healthy Central Valley Together established a wastewater-based disease surveillance (WDS) program that aims to achieve greater health equity in the region through partnership with Central Valley communities and the Sewer Coronavirus Alert Network. WDS offers a cost-effective strategy to monitor trends in SARS-CoV-2 community infection rates.MethodsIn this study, we evaluated correlations between public health and wastewater data (represented as SARS-CoV-2 target gene copies normalized by pepper mild mottle virus target gene copies) collected for three Central Valley communities over two periods of COVID-19 infection waves between October 2021 and September 2022. Public health data included clinical case counts at county and sewershed scales as well as COVID-19 hospitalization and intensive care unit admissions. Lag-adjusted hospitalization:wastewater ratios were also evaluated as a retrospective metric of disease severity and corollary to hospitalization:case ratios.ResultsConsistent with other studies, strong correlations were found between wastewater and public health data. However, a significant reduction in case:wastewater ratios was observed for all three communities from the first to the second wave of infections, decreasing from an average of 4.7 ± 1.4 over the first infection wave to 0.8 ± 0.4 over the second.DiscussionThe decline in case:wastewater ratios was likely due to reduced clinical testing availability and test seeking behavior, highlighting how WDS can fill data gaps associated with under-reporting of cases. Overall, the hospitalization:wastewater ratios remained more stable through the two waves of infections, averaging 0.5 ± 0.3 and 0.3 ± 0.4 over the first and second waves, respectively.

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Healthy Davis Together: Creating a Model for Community Control of COVID-19

Cited by 7 publications

References 4 publications

Assessing SARS-CoV-2 Testing Adherence in a University Town: Recurrent Event Modeling Analysis

Assessing SARS-CoV-2 Testing Adherence in a University Town: Recurrent Event Modeling Analysis

A Chief Health Security Officer for Every Academic Health Center: Improving Readiness, Response, Recovery, and Resilience

Expansion of wastewater-based disease surveillance to improve health equity in California’s Central Valley: sequential shifts in case-to-wastewater and hospitalization-to-wastewater ratios

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