Pre-COVID-19 pandemic health-related behaviours in children (2018–2020) and association with being tested for SARS-CoV-2 and testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 (2020–2021): a retrospective cohort study using survey data linked with routine health data in Wales, UK

  1. Emily Marchant
  2. Emily Lowthian
  3. Tom Crick
  4. Lucy J Griffiths
  5. Richard Fry
  6. Kevin Dadaczynski
  7. Orkan Okan
  8. Michaela James
  9. Laura Cowley
  10. Fatemeh Torabi
  11. Jonathan Kennedy
  12. Ashley Akbari
  13. Ronan Lyons
  14. Sinead Brophy

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Abstract

Examine if pre-COVID-19 pandemic (prior March 2020) health-related behaviours during primary school are associated with (1) being tested for SARS-CoV-2 and (2) testing positive between 1 March 2020 and 31 August 2021.

Design

Retrospective cohort study using an online cohort survey (January 2018 to February 2020) linked with routine PCR SARS-CoV-2 test results.

Setting

Children attending primary schools in Wales (2018–2020), UK, who were part of the Health and Attainment of Pupils in a Primary Education Network (HAPPEN)_school network.

Participants

Complete linked records of eligible participants were obtained for n=7062 individuals. 39.1% (n=2764) were tested (age 10.6±0.9; 48.9% girls) and 8.1% (n=569) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (age 10.6±1.0; 54.5% girls).

Main outcome measures

Logistic regression of health-related behaviours and demographics were used to determine the ORs of factors associated with (1) being tested for SARS-CoV-2 and (2) testing positive for SARS-CoV-2.

Results

Consuming sugary snacks (1–2 days/week OR=1.24, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.49; 5–6 days/week OR=1.31, 95% CI 1.07 to 1.61; reference 0 days), can swim 25 m (OR=1.21, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.39) and age (OR=1.25, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.35) were associated with an increased likelihood of being tested for SARS-CoV-2. Eating breakfast (OR=1.52, 95% CI 1.01 to 2.27), weekly physical activity ≥60 min (1–2 days OR=1.69, 95% CI 1.04 to 2.74; 3–4 days OR=1.76, 95% CI 1.10 to 2.82; reference 0 days), out-of-school club participation (OR=1.06, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.10), can ride a bike (OR=1.39, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.93), age (OR=1.16, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.28) and girls (OR=1.21, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.46) were associated with an increased likelihood of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. Living in least deprived areas (quintile 4 OR=0.64, 95% CI 0.46 to 0.90; quintile 5 OR=0.64, 95% CI 0.46 to 0.89) compared with the most deprived (quintile 1) was associated with a decreased likelihood.

Conclusions

Associations may be related to parental health literacy and monitoring behaviours. Physically active behaviours may include coparticipation with others and exposure to SARS-CoV-2. A risk-versus-benefit approach must be considered in relation to promoting these health behaviours, given the importance of health-related behaviours such as childhood physical activity for development.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-061344
  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.01.21.22269651v2 on medRxiv
  3. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.21.22269651: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Ethics: Ethical approval was granted by the Swansea University Medical School Research Ethics Committee (2017-0033H).
    Consent: To participate in the HAPPEN survey and link data to routine records, child assent was required in addition to parental consent (between 2014 to 2018) and opt-out parental consent (2019 onwards).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The RECORD checklist[24] for this study is presented in online supplemental appendix 1.
    RECORD
    suggested: (RECORD, RRID:SCR_009097)
    The second (EM) researcher coded the anonymised raw dataset using STATA (version 16) to produce a dataset for analyses.
    STATA
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  4. Version published to 10.1101/2022.01.21.22269651v1 on medRxiv