Abstract

Barriers and facilitators to COVID-19 diagnostic testing among staff and parents from San Diego county schools and childcare centers

Megan Nguyen, BS¹, Marlene Flores, MA², Dawn Duong³, Elizabeth Frost, MPH/MSW⁴, Richard Garfein, PhD MPH⁵, Ashkan Hassani³, Tina Le, BS⁶, Araz Majnoonian, BS⁷, Vinton Omaleki, MPH⁴, Anh Vo, BA³, F. Carrissa Wijaya⁶ and Rebecca Fielding-Miller, MSPH, PhD⁷
(1)UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Sciences, La Jolla, CA, (2)University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, (3)University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, (4)UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, San Diego, CA, (5)San Diego, CA, (6)UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, La Jolla, CA, (7)University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA

APHA 2021 Annual Meeting and Expo

Background: COVID-19 diagnostic testing is a key risk mitigation strategy to ensure the safe operation of schools and childcare programs for students and staff members. The Safer at School Early Alert (SASEA) program sought to encourage high testing uptake within school communities to promptly detect infected individuals and prevent further transmission. We investigated attitudes and community perceptions of COVID-19 diagnostic testing to identify barriers and facilitators in testing uptake.

Methods: Using a mixed-methods approach, we administered a quantitative community survey and conducted focus group discussions with staff and parents from SASEA-affiliated schools and childcare centers.

Results: We recruited 299 survey respondents and 42 focus group participants. 33.3% of survey respondents reported not knowing where or how to be tested as a predominant barrier to testing. Protecting one’s family (96.6%) , protecting one’s community (96.6%), testing accessibility (96.3%), and reassurance from test results (96.3%) were marked as key facilitators to testing uptake. Focus group participants expressed that barriers discouraging families from testing included time cost, language, accessibility, and the fear of positive results with necessary employment leave and related isolation requirements. Motivators for increasing testing uptake include convenient on-site testing, reassurance from negative results, family and community well-being, and school staff feeling safe at work.

Conclusion: San Diego school communities named discernable barriers to testing, predominantly related to accessibility and socioeconomic costs. We recommend offering testing in convenient high traffic areas or workplaces with multilingual staff and materials, low to no cost access, and finally, resources for isolation and quarantine.

Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs Occupational health and safety Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs Protection of the public in relation to communicable diseases including prevention or control Public health or related research Social and behavioral sciences