Sharron Xuanren Wang, Nicole Bell Rogers, Melissa Harrington, Dorothy Dillard
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Health experts believe that frequent COVID-19 testing is one of the most important practices for stopping the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Demographic and social factors might play a role in whether a person gets tested for COVID. This present study aimed to investigate (1) the demographic and social factors affecting a person's likelihood of getting tested for COVID-19, and (2) the demographic and social factors related to a positive serology test (i.e., indicating likely past infection).
Methods: Data were extracted from a survey conducted in Delaware's underserved communities. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire about their COVID-19 testing history, and nurses at the study site collected a serology sample from each participant.
Results: Our results indicated that Black or Hispanic individuals living in underserved communities had greater odds of having been tested previously for COVID compared to being non-Hispanic White. In addition, our study found that being female, educated, feeling safe in one's neighborhood, being vaccinated against COVID, and being an essential worker increased one's odds of having been previously tested for COVID-19. Regarding the results of the COVID-19 antibody serology tests, our findings revealed that Hispanic respondents were more likely to have a positive serology test compared to non-Hispanic White respondents, indicating that the Hispanic individuals were more likely to contract the virus. Educated individuals were less likely to have a positive serology test compared to the less-educated. Those who expressed hesitancy about getting vaccinated for COVID-19 and identified themselves as essential workers were more likely to have a positive serology test and to have previously contracted the virus.
Conclusions: Identifying key factors associated with COVID-19 testing may help establish novel strategies to increase testing rates among vulnerable population. Public health and policy implications are discussed in the article.
期刊介绍：
Discover Social Science and Health is an interdisciplinary, international journal that publishes papers at the intersection of the social and biomedical sciences. Papers should integrate, in both theory and measures, a social perspective (reflecting anthropology, criminology, economics, epidemiology, policy, sociology, etc) and a concern for health (mental and physical). Health, broadly construed, includes biological and other indicators of overall health, symptoms, diseases, diagnoses, treatments, treatment adherence, and related concerns. Drawing on diverse, sound methodologies, submissions may include reports of new empirical findings (including important null findings) and replications, reviews and perspectives that construe prior research and discuss future research agendas, methodological research (including the evaluation of measures, samples, and modeling strategies), and short or long commentaries on topics of wide interest. All submissions should include statements of significance with respect to health and future research. Discover Social Science and Health is an Open Access journal that supports the pre-registration of studies.
Topics
Papers suitable for Discover Social Science and Health will include both social and biomedical theory and data. Illustrative examples of themes include race/ethnicity, sex/gender, socioeconomic, geographic, and other social disparities in health; migration and health; spatial distribution of risk factors and access to healthcare; health and social relationships; interactional processes in healthcare, treatments, and outcomes; life course patterns of health and treatment regimens; cross-national patterns in health and health policies; characteristics of communities and neighborhoods and health; social networks and treatment adherence; stigma and disease progression; methodological studies including psychometric properties of measures frequently used in health research; and commentary and analysis of key concepts, theories, and methods in studies of social science and biomedicine. The journal welcomes submissions that draw on biomarkers of health, genetically-informed and neuroimaging data, psychophysiological measures, and other forms of data that describe physical and mental health, access to health care, treatment, and related constructs.
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