Predictors of COVID testing among Australian youth: Insights from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children

  1. Md Irteja Islam
  2. Verity Chadwick
  3. Alexandra Martiniuk

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Abstract

Background

Testing has played a crucial role in reducing the spread of COVID. Although COVID symptoms tend to be less severe in children and adolescents, a key concern is young people’s role in the transmission of the virus given their highly social lifestyles. In this study, we aimed to identify the predictors associated with COVID testing in Australian youth using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC).

Methods

We used the latest wave 9C1 of the LSAC, where data were collected from 16–21-year-old Australians via an online survey between October and December 2021. In total, 2291 Australian youths responded to the questions about COVID testing and COVID symptom severity. Data was stratified by living with/without parents, and bivariate and logistic regression analyses examined predictor variables (age, sex, country of birth, remoteness, education level, employment, relationship status, number of household members, living with parents, receiving the COVID financial supplement from government and index of relative socio-economic advantage and disadvantage) and their distributions over the outcome variable COVID testing.

Results

Youths aged 16-17 were more likely to live at home than youths aged 20-21 years. The strongest predictor of COVID testing was living in major cities (regardless of living with or without parents). Changed household composition was significantly associated with COVID testing among the youths living in the parental home. While among the respondents living without their parents, living with multiple household members and low or no cohesion among household members was associated with higher rates of COVID testing.

Conclusion

Our study revealed young people have been very good at getting tested for COVID. To further incentivise testing in this age group, we should consider providing this age group with continued financial and social support while awaiting the outcome of the test and during any isolation.

Strengths and limitations of this study

  • Large national cohort of young people strengthened the findings of the study and allowing us to examine the factors associated with COVID testing for the first time in Australia.

  • A broad-based assessment of potential predictors of COVID testing, including sociodemographic and coronavirus specific factor.

  • Cross-sectional observational design limits causal inference.

  • Self-reported information about COVID testing can be subject to recall as well as social desirability bias.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.31.21265627: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsField Sample Permit: More details on the LSAC methodology, including sampling procedures and data collection techniques, is described elsewhere.24, 25 Our current study included 2291 Australian youth aged 16-21 years at the time of the LSAC Wave 9C1 in 2020.
    IRB: Ethics: The LSAC has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) (Application number 20-09), and written informed consent was obtained for all study participants.
    Consent: Ethics: The LSAC has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) (Application number 20-09), and written informed consent was obtained for all study participants.
    Sex as a biological variableExplanatory variables: Based on the previous literature,26, 27 the following socio-demographic variables were considered as predictor variables in this study: age (16-17 years, 20-21 years), sex (Male, Female), country of birth (Australia, Overseas), remoteness (Major cities, Rural/remote areas), education (Technical/others, Secondary, University/tertiary), employment (Full-time, Part-time, Unemployed), number of household members (Alone, Two people, Three people, Four or more people), living with parents (Yes, No), currently in a relationship (Yes, No), and the SEIFA (Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas) Index of Relative Socio-Economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD) quintiles.
    RandomizationSecond, children were randomly selected from a selection of 311 postcodes, around 40 and 20 children per postcode in the large and small states, respectively.24 The LSAC collected data biennially since 2004 from two cohorts - the birth
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Another limitation may be the difficulty in comparing these findings to other countries, for example, Australia’s COVID testing rate is much higher than many other countries; 2.7 per day per 1,000 people55 compared to the US (1.9 per 1,000), the UK (1.3 per 1,000) and India (0.654 per 1,000).56 This may be due to Australia’s relatively high national wealth (and lower inequality compared to US), as well as finanical support for individuals and businesses afflicted by the pandemic.57

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.10.31.21265627v1 on medRxiv