scholarly journals 381. The Importance of Data Accuracy and Transparency for Policymaking During a Public Health Crisis: A Case Study in the State of Iowa

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S292-S293
Author(s):  
Megan L Srinivas ◽  
HyungSub Shim ◽  
Dana Jones ◽  
Patrick R Hansen ◽  
Sara A Willette ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
News Media ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Reported Data ◽  
K 12

Abstract Background High-quality data are necessary for decision-making during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Lack of transparency and accuracy in data reporting can erode public confidence, mislead policymakers, and endanger safety. Two major data errors in Iowa impacted critical state- and county-level decision-making. Methods The Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) publishes daily COVID-19 data. Authors independently tracked daily data from IDPH and other publicly available sources (i.e., county health departments, news media, and social networks). Data include: number and type of tests, results, hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions, and deaths at state/county levels. Results Discrepancies were identified between IDPH and non-IDPH data, with at least two confirmed by IDPH: (1) The backdating of test results identified on May 28, 2020. IDPH labeled results as occurring up to four months before the actual test date. IDPH confirmed that if a person previously tested for SARS-CoV-2, a new test result was attributed to the initial test’s date. Corrections on August 19, 2020 increased positivity rates in 31 counties, but decreased the state’s overall rate (9.1% to 7.5%). (2) The selective exclusion of antigen test results noted on August 20, 2020. Antigen testing was included in the total number of tests reported in metric denominators, but their results were being excluded from their respective numerators. Thus, positive antigen results were interpreted as de facto negative tests, artificially lowering positivity rates. Corrections increased Iowa’s positivity rate (5.0% to 14.2%). In July 2020, the Iowa Department of Education mandated in-person K-12 learning for counties with < 15% positivity. These data changes occurred during critical decision-making, altering return-to-learn plans in seven counties. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ requirements also caused nursing homes to urgently revise testing strategies. Timeline of changes to Iowa state COVID-19 testing through the end of August 2020. Change in positive and overall test results due to IDPH data corrections. These graphs represent the difference in cumulative total reported test results when pulled from the IDPH website on September 29, 2020 compared to data for the same dates when pulled on August 19, 2020 before the announced adjustment. The adjustment and subsequent daily changes in reported data amount to a dramatic change in the number of reported positive cases (A) with an increase of nearly 3,000 cases by April 25, as well as the loss of tens of thousands of data points when tracking total resulted tests (B). Conclusion Data availability, quality, and transparency vary widely across the US, hindering science-based policymaking. Independent audit and curations of data can contribute to better public health policies. We urge all states to increase the availability and transparency of public health data. Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures

Is the Perfect the Enemy of the Good?: Using the Data You Have

2019 ◽  
pp. 205-218
Author(s):  
Theresa Chapple-McGruder ◽  
Jaime Slaughter-Acey ◽  
Jennifer Kmet ◽  
Tonia Ruddock
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Health Improvement ◽  
Improvement Program ◽  
Policy Decision Making ◽  
Health Question

This chapter offers instructions on how to find the data needed for a particular public health improvement program. The chapter starts by defining two systems of data collection: primary and secondary. However, it is important to remember that all data has limitations. There is no such thing as perfect data. The use of primary data in practice or policy decision-making is often constrained by resources and time, as collecting robust data typically takes years. Although secondary data poses limits, such that it might be data not collected specifically for a particular health question, or not being representative of the population of interest, or perhaps there is a lag in data availability. However, the chapter concludes, things can always be improved even if perfection is never reached.

Transparent resource management

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 965-978 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenton Cyriel Faubert
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Education Finance ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Funding Model ◽  
Resource Needs ◽  
Canadian Context ◽  
K 12 ◽  
Resource Decision

Purpose Public education is an important institution in any democracy, and the significant resources invested form a critical pillar in its provision. The evidence used to manage said resources is, therefore, an important issue for education leaders and a matter public interest. The purpose of this paper is to consider the role education finance leaders in Ontario, Canada, and what types of evidence they are using, how they are being employed and how much priority is given to each. Design/methodology/approach The paper employs a review of Ontario’s K-12 education funding policies/reports, and interviews with five K-12 funding model experts/leaders – four business superintendents from school boards of varying sizes (based on enrollment) and one system leader (to introduce perspective from the two levels of governance in resource management) to understand how these experts use evidence to inform resource decision making. This sampling strategy was also grounded in a key assumption: School boards with larger enrollment – and consequently larger budgets – will have greater capacity to use all forms of evidence when managing resources, as the majority of board revenue comes from grants that are mostly based on enrollment. Findings The findings bring important definition and prioritization of evidence that inform leaders’ resource decision making in education. The results point to two tacit, normative, unacknowledged and, yet, competing evidence frameworks driving resource management. The government is the most influential, prioritizing strategic policy, performance data, fiscal context and professional judgment; values embedded in policy and research were mentioned only in passing, while local anecdotal types of evidence were given less priority. Compounding this challenge is that all sides in debates on school resource needs face issues of access to, transparency in the use of and the prioritization given to various evidence types. Research limitations/implications Governments, with the assistance of academics, should formally articulate and make public the evidence framework they use to drive resource decision making. All sides of the resource management debate need to value a wider range of evidence, notably evidence that speak to local concerns, to reduce information gaps and, potentially, improve on the effective delivery of local educational programming. Education finance researchers could help to address access gaps by distilling research on the effective use of resources in a manner that is timely, tailored to the fiscal climate and to system- or district-level readiness for the implementation of a particular initiative. Practical implications Resource management driven solely by “facts” can support student achievement outcomes and effective system operation, but alone will not satisfy local-level aspirations for education or inspire public confidence; a key ingredient for the sustainability of this public institution. The results could be used to improve the balance of “decent information” used to inform resource deliberations and establish a shared understanding across stakeholder groups to facilitate compromise. The current state of affairs has all sides in advancing claims for resource needs based on what they understand to be evidence all while portraying competing claims as uninformed, undermining public confidence in education. Originality/value The paper draws from interviews with business superintendents and a system-level funding model expert, both lesser studied leaders on this topic in the Canadian context; offers a clear articulation of the evidence frameworks at play and the priority given to each type and how they are being used; presents definition and prioritization of evidence from the perspective of leaders in the Canadian context (most of literature is from the USA) – experts acknowledge that resource knowledge is contextually contingent and insight generated from other contexts will help to advance the field.

scholarly journals Policy liberalism and source of news predict pandemic-related health behaviors and trust in the scientific community

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0252670
Author(s):  
Madeleine Reinhardt ◽  
Matthew B. Findley ◽  
Renee A. Countryman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Behaviors ◽  
News Media ◽  
Perceived Risk ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Health ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Health Measures

In March of 2020, the United States was confronted with a major public health crisis caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This study aimed to identify what factors influence adherence to recently implemented public health measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing, trust of scientific organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) on information pertaining to the pandemic, and level of perceived risk. Data were collected from June 30, 2020 to July 22, 2020 on 951 adult residents of the United States using an online survey through Microsoft Forms. Multiple linear regression was used to identify the strongest predictors for compliance to pandemic-related health measures, trust in the scientific community, and perceived risk. Results showed that the strongest predictor of all variables of interest was degree of policy liberalism. Additionally, participants who consumed more conservative news media conformed less to the pandemic health guidelines and had less trust in the scientific community. Degree of policy liberalism was found to have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between gender and conformity to pandemic-related health behaviors. These findings have concerning implications that factors like degree of policy liberalism and source of news are more influential in predicting adherence to life-saving health measures than established risk factors like pre-existing health conditions.

scholarly journals Real-world data: how they can help to improve quality of care

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 134-139
Author(s):  
Giovanni Corrao ◽  
Giovanni Alquati ◽  
Giovanni Apolone ◽  
Andrea Ardizzoni ◽  
Giuliano Buzzetti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Quality Of Care ◽  
Real World ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Real World Data ◽  
World Data ◽  
Critical Issues

The current COVID pandemic crisis made it even clearer that the solutions to several questions that public health must face require the access to good quality data. Several issues of the value and potential of health data and the current critical issues that hinder access are discussed in this paper. In particular, the paper (i) focuses on “real-world data” definition; (ii) proposes a review of the real-world data availability in our country; (iii) discusses its potential, with particular focus on the possibility of improving knowledge on the quality of care provided by the health system; (iv) emphasizes that the availability of data alone is not sufficient to increase our knowledge, underlining the need that innovative analysis methods (e.g., artificial intelligence techniques) must be framed in the paradigm of clinical research; and (v) addresses some ethical issues related to their use. The proposal is to realize an alliance between organizations interested in promoting research aimed at collecting scientifically solid evidence to support the clinical governance of public health.

scholarly journals Differential impact of non-pharmaceutical public health interventions on COVID-19 epidemics in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoshuang Liu ◽  
Xiao Xu ◽  
Guanqiao Li ◽  
Xian Xu ◽  
Yuyao Sun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Closure ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The Us ◽  
Individualized Decision

Abstract Background: The widespread pandemic of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses an unprecedented global health crisis. In the United States (US), different state governments have adopted various combinations of non-pharmaceutical public health interventions (NPIs), such as non-essential business closures and gathering bans, to mitigate the epidemic from February to April, 2020. Quantitative assessment on the effectiveness of NPIs is greatly needed to assist in guiding individualized decision making for adjustment of interventions in the US and around the world. However, the impacts of these approaches remain uncertain.Methods: Based on the reported cases, the effective reproduction number (Rt) of COVID-19 epidemic for 50 states in the US was estimated. Measurements on the effectiveness of nine different NPIs were conducted by assessing risk ratios (RRs) between R t and NPIs through a generalized linear model (GLM). Results: Different NPIs were found to have led to different levels of reduction in Rt. Stay-at-home contributed approximately 51% (95% CI 46%-57%), wearing (face) masks 29% (15%-42%), gathering ban (more than 10 people) 19% (14%-24%), non-essential business closure 16% (10%-21%), declaration of emergency 13% (8%-17%), interstate travel restriction 11% (5%-16%), school closure 10% (7%-14%), initial business closure 10% (6%-14%), and gathering ban (more than 50 people) 7% (2%-11%).Conclusions: This retrospective assessment of NPIs on Rt has shown that NPIs played critical roles on epidemic control in the US in the past several months. The quantitative results could guide individualized decision making for future adjustment of NPIs in the US and other countries for COVID-19 and other similar infectious diseases.

scholarly journals Spanish-Language News Consumption and Latino Reactions to COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (18) ◽  
pp. 9629
Author(s):  
Barbara Gomez-Aguinaga ◽  
Ana L. Oaxaca ◽  
Matt A. Barreto ◽  
Gabriel R. Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
News Media ◽  
Source Credibility ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish Language ◽  
Media Consumption ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
News Consumption ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The Impact

While the literature on infectious disease outbreaks has examined the extent to which communication inequalities during public health emergencies exacerbate negative outcomes among disadvantaged individuals, the implications of ethnic media consumption among minority groups during these crises are underexplored. Making use of the first nationally representative survey of US Latinos (N = 1200) on the impact and reactions to COVID-19, this study examines the implications of Spanish-language news media consumption on source credibility and attitude formation during the COVID-19 pandemic among Latinos and immigrants from Latin America. Through a series of statistical analyses, this study finds that ethnic news consumption is strongly associated with trust in Spanish-language journalists, whereas mainstream media consumption is not associated with trust in English-language journalists. More importantly, this study finds that source credibility, particularly in Spanish-language journalists, matters for Latinos as it is associated with more positive assessments of state and local officials providing adequate information about COVID-19. This study illuminates the importance of non-traditional media among racial minorities, who account for almost 40% of the US population, and highlights the importance of shared backgrounds in source credibility among linguistically diverse groups in the United States during a public health crisis.

Pandemic Tales

2020 ◽  
pp. 22-45
Author(s):  
Mark Davis ◽  
Davina Lohm
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Narrative Theory ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Narrative Approaches ◽  
Public Health Crisis ◽  
Coming To Know

Chapter 2 considers in more detail the growing significance of narrative approaches to health communication on pandemic threats, reflecting on the conceptual bases for this turn in light of perspectives from narrative theory and biopolitical accounts of infectious diseases. Key themes are the folk-tale undercurrents of pandemic narratives that appear in news media and in the advice of experts and therefore also their significance for the individuals who engage with them. A key point is that narrative and its mediations are a primary point of contact for publics coming to know of a rapidly emerging public health crisis. In this respect, we introduce Sarah’s story of how she realized that she was herself possibly at risk of the virus, in part because of stories on the pandemic circulated in media she consumed.

scholarly journals An in-depth statistical analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic’s initial spread in the WHO African region

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ananthu James ◽  
Jyoti Dalal ◽  
Timokleia Kousi ◽  
Daniela Vivacqua ◽  
Daniel Cardoso Portela Câmara ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Older People ◽  
Attack Rate ◽  
Age Distribution ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
List Type ◽  
African Region ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Good Quality Data

AbstractObjectiveTo quantify the initial spread of COVID-19 in the WHO African region, and to investigate the possible drivers responsible for variation in the epidemic among member states.DesignA cross-sectional study.SettingCOVID-19 daily case and death data from the initial case through 29 November 2020.Participants46 countries comprising the WHO African region.Main outcome measuresWe used five pandemic response indicators for each country: speed at which the pandemic reached the country, speed at which the first 50 cases accumulated, maximum monthly attack rate, cumulative attack rate, and crude case fatality ratio (CFR). We studied the effect of 13 predictor variables on the country-level variation in them using a principal component analysis, followed by regression.ResultsCountries with higher tourism activities, GDP per capita, and proportion of older people had higher monthly (p < 0.001) and cumulative attack rates (p < 0.001) and lower CFRs (p = 0.052). Countries having more stringent early COVID-19 response policies experienced greater delay in arrival of the first case (p < 0.001). The speed at which the first 50 cases occurred was slower in countries whose neighbors had higher cumulative attack rates (p = 0.06).ConclusionsWhile global connectivity and tourism could facilitate the spread of airborne infectious agents, the observed differences in attack rates between African countries might also be due to differences in testing capacities or age distribution. Wealthy countries managed to minimize adverse outcomes. Further, careful and early implementation of strict government policies, such as restricting tourism, could be pivotal to controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. Evidently, good quality data and sufficient testing capacities are essential to unravel the epidemiology of an outbreak. We thus urge decision-makers to reduce these barriers to ensure rapid responses to future threats to public health and economic stability.Summary BoxWhat is already known on this topicThe diversity in the COVID-19 trajectories across Africa.The heterogeneity in the reporting and testing capacities among countries.What this study addsThe heterogeneities in the attack rates during the first wave of COVID-19 in Africa could have emerged due to tourism and connectivity, the variations in age distribution, and the testing facilities between nations. Although richer countries, having a higher fraction of older people and more tourism activities, documented higher attack rates, they succeeded in reducing mortalities.African countries that had more stringent early COVID-19 response policies managed to delay the onset of the outbreak at the national level. Moreover, the speed at which the first 50 cases occurred was slower in nations whose neighbors had higher cumulative attack rates.Good quality data and timely reporting are essential in understanding and controlling a public health crisis.

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