Abstract
BackgroundEffective syndromic surveillance alongside COVID-19 testing behaviours in the population including in higher risk and hard to reach subgroups is vital to detect re-emergence of COVID-19 transmission in the community. The aim of this paper was to identify the prevalence of acute respiratory infection symptoms and coronavirus testing behaviour among South Australians using data from a population based survey.MethodsWe used cross-sectional data from the 2020 state-wide population level health survey on 6857 respondents aged 18 years and above. Descriptive statistics were used to explore the risk factors and multivariable logistic regression models were used to assess the factors associated with the acute respiratory infection symptoms and coronavirus testing behaviour after adjusting for gender, age, household size, household income, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status, SEIFA, Country of birth, number of chronic diseases, wellbeing, psychological distress, and mental health.ResultsWe found that 19.3% of respondents reported having symptoms of acute respiratory infection and the most commonly reported symptoms were a runny nose (11.2%), coughing (9.9%) and sore throat (6.2%). Fever and cough were reported by 0.8% of participants. Of the symptomatic respondents, 32.6% reported seeking health advice from a nurse, doctor or healthcare provider. Around 18% (n = 130) of symptomatic respondents had sought testing and a further 4.3% (n = 31) reported they intended to get tested. The regression results suggest that older age, larger household size, a higher number of chronic disease, mental health condition, poor wellbeing, and psychological distress were associated with higher odds of ARI symptoms. Higher household income was associated with lower odds of being tested or intending to be tested for coronavirus after adjusting for other explanatory variables.ConclusionsThere were relatively high rates of self-reported acute respiratory infection during a period of very low COVID-19 prevalence and low rate of coronavirus testing among symptomatic respondents. Ongoing monitoring of testing uptake, including in higher-risk groups, and possible interventions to improve testing uptake is key to early detection of disease.
Highlights
Effective syndromic surveillance alongside COVID-19 testing behaviours in the population including in higher risk and hard to reach subgroups is vital to detect re-emergence of COVID-19 transmission in the community
Various factors may contribute to non-optimal uptake, ranging from the generally mild illness caused by COVID-19 amongst young people [7], to social factors including lack of access to health care, inability to isolate and stay away from work whilst awaiting test results [8], or to limited access to mainstream health promotion messaging [9] due to language barriers
Such factors have the potential to have greater impact on high-risk populations, running the risk of undetected amplification within these groups [10, 11]. This undetected amplification occurred in Australia; when COVID-19 first emerged in Australia in March and April 2020, transmission was suppressed through widespread stay at home orders
Summary
Effective syndromic surveillance alongside COVID-19 testing behaviours in the population including in higher risk and hard to reach subgroups is vital to detect re-emergence of COVID-19 transmission in the community. Various factors may contribute to non-optimal uptake, ranging from the generally mild illness caused by COVID-19 amongst young people [7], to social factors including lack of access to health care, inability to isolate and stay away from work whilst awaiting test results [8], or to limited access to mainstream health promotion messaging [9] due to language barriers. Such factors have the potential to have greater impact on high-risk populations, running the risk of undetected amplification within these groups [10, 11]. This resulted in a large outbreak in the state of Victoria, which has caused more than 18,000 cases and 700 deaths as of 13 January 2021 [12]
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