Please read Dr. Barrett’s article in the American Journal of Public Health titled, “Community- Versus Health Care Organization-Based Approaches to Expanding At-Home COVID-19 Testing in Black and Latino Communities, New Jersey, 2021.“
Although free COVID-19 testing has been widely embraced in some settings, access to testing has remained challenging throughout the pandemic for many people. Limited testing sites and long lines present barriers to testing, particularly among lower-income individuals with reduced control over their schedules or limited access to transportation. Despite that, little research has evaluated strategies to enhance testing in underserved populations, and to our knowledge, no previous research has examined this issue in the context of at-home testing, an increasingly popular option given its potential convenience and safety advantages. Recognizing the risks to health care workers (HCWs) during the pandemic, we developed the New Jersey Health-care Essential Worker OutReach and Education Study-Testing Overlooked Occupations (NJ HEROES TOO) intervention as part of the National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics—Underserved Populations(RADx-UP) initiative. NJ HEROES TOO engaged Black and Latino HCWs to constitute a health care organization (HCO) arm as “ambassadors” promoting at-home COVID-19 testing in their households and communities, and testing uptake in that arm was com-pared with uptake in a second study arm involving a traditional community-based organization (CBO) approach. Our aims were to compare the odds of at-home COVID-19 test requests and completions across study arms and examine sociodemographic factors associated with requests and completions. To read the full article.
Community- Versus Health Care Organization-Based Approaches to Expanding At-Home COVID-19 Testing in Black and Latino Communities, New Jersey, 2021. Barrett ES, Andrews TR, Roy J, Greenberg P, Ferrante JM, Horton DB, Gordon M, Rivera-Núñez Z, Pellerano MB, Tallia AF, Budolfson M, Georgopoulos P, Reed D, Lynn B, Rosati R, Castañeda M, Dixon F, Pernell C, Hill D, Jimenez ME, Blaser MJ, Panettieri R Jr, Hudson SV. Am J Public Health. 2022 Oct 20:e1-e5. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2022.306989. PMID: 36265092 DOI: 2105/AJPH.2022.306989