Improving adherence to ‘test, trace and isolate’
Improving adherence to ‘test, trace and isolate’
Isolating sick patients, tracing their contacts and placing them into quarantine is a strategy used by generations of public health physicians in their fight against infectious disease. As coronavirus lockdowns around the world start to ease, new systems based on this strategy are being rolled out to prevent a resurgence of the pandemic. If these systems do not consider the behavioural issues posed by symptom reporting and quarantine, they will struggle to meet their goals.
The goals of this commentary are to outline the key behavioural issues that a test, trace and isolate system for the management of COVID-19 will face, and to suggest specific ways that system design can address these. In this paper, we highlight five areas in which these behavioural issues should be taken into account, structured to follow the steps of the test, trace and isolate process: development of symptoms; reporting of symptoms; isolation; reporting of contacts; and quarantining contacts. The issues we highlight largely apply regardless of the modality of system, be it via an app, website or in-person consultation.
335-338
Rubin, G.J.
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Smith, Louise E.
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Melendez-Torres, G.J.
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Yardley, Lucy
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September 2020
Rubin, G.J.
4776cfa7-0040-48af-8b8d-f644ae7c27ec
Smith, Louise E.
4cfb9721-9982-4c96-b170-db664248117b
Melendez-Torres, G.J.
4b28c1a1-8221-426a-8ee6-f5dddb0e2cd5
Yardley, Lucy
64be42c4-511d-484d-abaa-f8813452a22e
Rubin, G.J., Smith, Louise E., Melendez-Torres, G.J. and Yardley, Lucy
(2020)
Improving adherence to ‘test, trace and isolate’.
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 113 (9), .
(doi:10.1177/0141076820956824).
Abstract
Isolating sick patients, tracing their contacts and placing them into quarantine is a strategy used by generations of public health physicians in their fight against infectious disease. As coronavirus lockdowns around the world start to ease, new systems based on this strategy are being rolled out to prevent a resurgence of the pandemic. If these systems do not consider the behavioural issues posed by symptom reporting and quarantine, they will struggle to meet their goals.
The goals of this commentary are to outline the key behavioural issues that a test, trace and isolate system for the management of COVID-19 will face, and to suggest specific ways that system design can address these. In this paper, we highlight five areas in which these behavioural issues should be taken into account, structured to follow the steps of the test, trace and isolate process: development of symptoms; reporting of symptoms; isolation; reporting of contacts; and quarantining contacts. The issues we highlight largely apply regardless of the modality of system, be it via an app, website or in-person consultation.
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improving adherence to test trace isolate
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e-pub ahead of print date: 10 September 2020
Published date: September 2020
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Funding Information:
We are grateful to the helpful comments from Cathy Rice and Jennifer Bostock, who acted as lay advisors and reviewed this manuscript for concept and clarity.
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 444006
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/444006
ISSN: 0141-0768
PURE UUID: 8f263854-0c27-428a-8dd5-d98408ff3230
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Date deposited: 21 Sep 2020 17:09
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 02:47
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Contributors
Author:
G.J. Rubin
Author:
Louise E. Smith
Author:
G.J. Melendez-Torres
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