Preventing within household transmission of Covid-19: is the provision of accommodation to support self-isolation feasible and acceptable?
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Abstract
Background
Within-household transmission of Covid-19 is responsible for a significant number of infections. Efforts to protect at risk communities are needed. This study explored the acceptability of offering accommodation to support self-isolation among at risk populations, to prevent transmission of Covid-19 within vulnerable households.
Methods
Mixed methods design structured in two phases. Phase 1: Survey of 545 individuals who had provided consent to be contacted about ongoing research projects into infection control. Phase 2: Semi-structured interviews with 19 participants from ethnic minority and low income communities.
Results
Many survey and interview participants viewed the provision of accommodation as important and necessary in certain contexts. Of the 110 survey respondents, 85 (77%) said that they were not able to isolate at home. Among this group, 24 (28%) said they would accept accommodation and 23 (27%) said that they would probably accept. Of those unable to isolate at home, and at high risk if they caught the virus ( N = 36) or living with someone at high risk (N 18), 19 (35%) said that they would accept, and 12 (22%) said they would probably accept accommodation.
Factors influencing uptake of accommodation included perceived 1) household vulnerability 2) virus exposure and 3) lack of isolation at home options. Barriers to accepting the accommodation offer included 1) able to isolate at home 2) wanting to be with family 3) caring responsibilities 4) mental wellbeing concerns 5) concerns about moving when ill and 6) infection control concerns. Participants raised issues that should be addressed before accommodation is offered, including questions regarding who should use temporary accommodation and when, and how infection control in temporary accommodation would be managed.
Conclusion
The provision of accommodation to prevent within household transmission of Covid-19 is viewed as acceptable, feasible and necessary by some people who are concerned about infection transmission in the home and are unable to self-isolate or socially distance at home. Different households will have different requirements, e.g., those with caring responsibilities, and to overcome these challenges additional support may be needed for the provision of accommodation to be feasible to those who could benefit most.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.20.20176529: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Limitations: The main limitation associated with this work is the extent to which the views of our sample are representative of the UK population. Our recruitment for phase one occurred via a mailing list of individuals who had previously used and provided feedback on a website aiming to reduce infection within the home. This is …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.20.20176529: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Limitations: The main limitation associated with this work is the extent to which the views of our sample are representative of the UK population. Our recruitment for phase one occurred via a mailing list of individuals who had previously used and provided feedback on a website aiming to reduce infection within the home. This is therefore likely to be a group of individuals who are highly motivated to engage in infection control behaviours and their views may not be representative of the wider population. However, those who took part in the interview phase of the study had not shown any prior interest in infection control practices. Whilst every effort was made to recruit a diverse sample of participants for interviews, our primary use of social media to recruit participants may have resulted in individuals with very relevant voices being excluded. For example, those from non-English speaking communities, those without internet access, and those without social media would have been missed. Despite attempts to recruit participants though existing networks with community group leaders, engagement through these networks was minimal and could not be pursued further due to the need for timely completion of this initial study. The rapidly changing nature of the pandemic and government advice limits the interpretation of our findings. As perceptions of risk within and outside the home change, the acceptability of accommodation to prevent transmission of the virus in the home may als...
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.
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