Modeling COVID-19 Aerosol Transmission in Primary Schools

Schools must balance public health, education, and social risks associated with returning to in-person learning. These risks are compounded by the ongoing uncertainty about vaccine availability and uptake for children under 12 years of age. In this paper, we show how the risk of infections that result directly from in-class aerosol transmission within an elementary school population can be estimated in order to compare the effects of different countermeasures. We compare the effectiveness of these countermeasures in reducing transmission including required masking at three levels of mask effectiveness, improving room airflow exchange rates, weekly testing of the students, and lunch partitioning. Our results show that multiple layers of interventions are necessary to keep in-class infections relatively low. These results can inform school administrators about how these interventions can help manage COVID-19 spread within their own elementary school populations.

SARS-CoV-2 Infection among School Population of One Developing Country. Do School Closures Protect Students and Teachers against SARS-CoV-2 Infection?

Evidence about the effectiveness of school closures as a measure to control the spread of COVID-19 is controversial. We posit that schools are not an important source of transmission; thus, we analyzed two surveillance methods: a web-based questionnaire and a telephone survey that monitored the impact of the pandemic due to COVID-19 cases in Bogotá, Colombia. We estimated the cumulative incidences for Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) and COVID-19 for each population group. Then, we assessed the differences using the cumulative incidence ratio (CIR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI95%). The ARI incidence among students was 20.1 times higher when estimated from the telephone survey than from the online questionnaire (CIR: 20.1; CI95% 17.11–23.53). Likewise, the ARI incidence among schoolteachers was 10 times higher in the telephone survey (CIR: 9.8; CI95% 8.3–11.5). the incidence of COVID-19 among schoolteachers was 4.3 times higher than among students in the online questionnarie (CIR: 4.3, CI95%: 3.8–5.0) and 2.1 times higher in the telephone survey (CIR = 2.1, CI95%: 1.8–2.6), and this behavior was also observed in the general population data. Both methods showed a capacity to detect COVID-19 transmission among students and schoolteachers, but the telephone survey estimates were probably closer to the real incidence rate.

379. Abstract For Comparison of Mandatory vs Non-Mandatory Compliance Rates For SARS-CoV-2 Testing in Grades K-12

Background Rapid testing to identify asymptomatically infected students with SARS-CoV-2 in elementary schools has been suggested as a possible method to reduce risk for in person instruction. As of August 3, 2020 (updated on January 25, 2021), California schools who obtained a waiver to conduct in-person instruction are not required to have mandatory testing for asymptomatic students, except for high contact sports which are required to undergo weekly testing. We explored the uptake of voluntary vs mandatory testing in a private waivered school. Methods Between the dates January 25, 2021 to April 16, 2021, the K-12 school superintendent sent an email to all parents outlining the voluntary testing program with a link to the on-line sign up and consent form. All students were offered weekly self-collected anterior nares BinaxNOW Rapid Antigen Test. Signed parental consent was required and tests were performed at the school. Students participating in contact sports were required to undergo testing the week a varsity game was played as a condition of participation. Data was gathered from the school administration and de-identified. Results K-5 Lower school had a school population of 448 students. Testing was offered on 8 weeks during the period of 2/15-2/19 to 4/5-4/9. 2 students (0.45%) receive screening on the week of 3/22-3/26. The other seven weeks when screening was offered 0 students received screening. 6-12 Upper school had a school population of 360 enrolled students. Testing was offered 3/8-3/12 and 3/15-3/19. The upper school had 22 students (6.11%) receive testing on the week of 3/8-3/12 and 21 students (5.83%) on the week of 3/15-3/19. Contact sports teams had 67 students on their roster. Weekly testing was offered from 3/22-3/26 to 4/12-4/16. Contact sports teams had 10 students (14.93%) receive testing on the week of 3/22-3/26, 33 students (52.24%) on the week of 4/5-4/9, and 32 students (49.25%) on the week of 4/12-4/16. Figure 1. Percent of students from each campus and sports team screened per week offered. Conclusion Voluntary SARS-CoV-2 screening was not a feasible approach for detection of asymptomatically infected individuals due to low uptake, however in the same school, mandatory testing had high uptake and would be a feasible strategy. Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures

Intervención Contra la Caries Dental a Partir de Acciones de Protección Específica en un Grupo de Escolares de Seis a Once Años de la Alcaldía Iztapalapa de la Ciudad de México

Objetivo: Implementar un proyecto de intervención contra la caries dental a partir de acciones de protección específica de la salud bucal con el propósito de reducir la incidencia de caries dental en una población escolar de seis a once años, de la Alcaldía Iztapalapa.Material y Métodos: Estudio longitudinal descriptivo y de comparación, conformado por un grupo control, con una muestra de 908 escolares de primer año de primaria que representó el 70% del total de niños de este grado escolar que entregaron su consentimiento firmado previa información a los padres de familia, realizado en 10 escuelas primarias de la Alcaldía Iztapalapa, que se encuentra ubicada en el oriente de la Ciudad de México. Y el grupo testigo conformado por los escolares (3440) que participaron en el diagnóstico base o inicial.Resultados: Tomando como base los resultados del diagnóstico bucal realizado en 3440 escolares, se llevó a cabo una intervención en el grupo control, con la aplicación de un programa de protección específica a partir de acciones de profilaxis, selladores de fosetas y fisuras y técnica de cepillado,así mismo, un seguimiento epidemiológico que inició cuando los escolares se encontraban en primer año y concluyó cuando estos terminaron el cuarto año de primaria, el estudio lo concluyeron 815 escolares. A los escolares que participaron en el grupo testigo no se les realizó ninguna acción odontológica, sus resultados sirvieron sólo de comparación con el propósito de identificar la incidencia de caries dental de los escolares del grupo control una vez concluida la intervención. La información se capturó en el Programa de Cómputo SPSS versión 23.0 en el que se obtuvieron: Estadísticas descriptivas: promedios y DS de caries dental, t de Student, y X2 de Pearson.Conclusiones: La reducción de la caries dental en el grupo control fue del 70.2%. Objective: To implement an intervention project against dental caries based on specific protection actions for oral health in order to reduce the incidence of dental caries in a school population, aged six to eleven years old, of the Iztapalapa Mayor's Office.Material and Methods: Longitudinal descriptive and comparison study, made up of a control group, was used in the study. It was carried out on a sample of 908 schoolchildren in the first year of primary school, which represents 70% of the total number of children of this school grade who gave their signed consent through their parents, The study, however, was carried out in 10 elementary schools of the Iztapalapa Mayor's Office, which is located in the east of Mexico City. The control group is made up of schoolchildren (3440) who participated in the baseline or initial diagnosis.Results: Based on the results of the oral diagnosis carried out in 3440 schoolchildren, an intervention was carried out in the control group with the application of a specific protection program based on prophylactic actions, pit and fissure sealants, and technique of brushing. Likewise, based on an epidemiological follow-up that began when the schoolchildren were in the first year and ended when they finished the fourth year of primary school, the study was completed by 815 schoolchildren. The schoolchildren who participated in the control group did not undergo any dental action, and their results served only as a comparison with the purpose of identifying the incidence of dental caries in the schoolchildren in the control group once the intervention has been concluded. The information was captured using the SPSS Computer Program version 23.0 in which the following were obtained: descriptive statistics such as the means and SD of dental caries, Student's t test, and Pearson's correlation X2.Conclusions: The reduction of dental caries in the control group was 70.2%.

Analysis on the vulnerabilities of middle school students in Mehedinți county

This research is part of the “Sustainable social and educational integration through sports activities” project, which aims to increase the school attendance rate and the transit rate to ISCED level 3. Mehedinți county presents a lot of vulnerabilities for middle school students. The purpose of the current study is to emphasise the structure of vulnerabilities for the middle school population from this Romanian county. The identified vulnerabilities were structured in eight categories, namely: Roma students, students with one or both parents working abroad, remigrated students, students from disorganised or single-parent families, students raised in foster care, students who are children of immigrants or refugees in Romania, students with a degree of disability and students at risk of early school dropout. This applied research was conducted over a period of 2 years. The participants are 170 students (93 boys and 77 girls) from two schools in rural areas, who have a moderate ISCED level. The methods used in this study are: literature review, survey, mathematical and statistical method, graphical method. The research results identify the structure of vulnerabilities affecting the middle school population in Mehedinți county. The research provides a deep insight into the social challenges faced by the lower secondary population in rural areas.

Prevalência de mordida aberta anterior em escolares de Porto Alegre

It was studied the open bite prevalence at four different steps of human dentition by epidemiological research in the school population in Porto Alegre. The open bite prevalence was bigger in the temporary dentition (38,11%) than in permanent or mixed dentition. ln the young permanent dentition the prevalence was 8,09% and 4,35% in the permanent one. It was verified by comparative study of the four evolution stages of human dentition, the great reduction of open bite prevalence from temporary to permanent dentition.

Improving knowledge about breast cancer and breast self examination in female Nigerian adolescents using peer education: a pre-post interventional study

Background Prevention of BC of which the cornerstone is creating awareness and early detection is important in adolescents and young women because of their worse outcomes. Early detection strategies such as mammography are currently beyond the reach of most women in sub-Saharan Africa.. Lack of awareness and late presentation contribute to the poor outcomes. Awareness creation among adolescents may result in modification of some risk factors for BC with adoption of healthy life styles including accessing early detection activities. This study determined the effect of peer education as a strategy to create awareness on BC and breast self examination (BSE) among in-school female adolescents in Benin City. Methods This was a pre-post interventional study carried out in October –December 2016 on female students of four secondary schools in Benin City. Pre-peer training, using a pre-tested self-administered questionnaire, knowledge about BC and BSE was assessed in about 30% of each school population. This was followed by training of 124 students selected from the schools (one student per class) as peer trainers. The peer trainers provided training on BC and BSE (the intervention) for their classmates. Within two weeks of peer training knowledge about BC and BSE was reassessed in 30% of each school population. Selection of students for assessment pre and post intervention was by systematic sampling. Correct knowledge was scored and presented as percentages. Chi square test, student t test and ANOVA were used to assess associations and test differences with level of significance set at p < 0.05. Results There were 1337 and 1201 students who responded to the pre and post-training questionnaires respectively. The mean BC knowledge score (20.61 ± 13.4) prior to training was low and it statistically significantly improved to 55.93 ± 10.86 following training p < 0.0001 Following peer training, statistically significant improvement (p 0.037- < 0.001) occurred in most knowledge domains apart from symptomatology. Pre-peer training 906(67.8%) students knew about BSE but only 67(4.8%). Significantly more students 1134(94.7%) knew about BSE following peer training. Conclusions Peer education strategy can be used to improve BC and BSE knowledge in adolescents. This strategy is low cost and could be very useful in low resource settings.

The concordance between ultrasonographic stage of breast and Tanner stage of breast for overweight and obese girls: a school population-based study

Objectives In this study, we evaluated the concordance between the ultrasonographic stage of breast (US B) and Tanner stage of breast (TS B) for overweight and obese girls based on a school population study. Methods We conducted multistage, stratified cluster, and random-proportional sampling and ultimately included 221 girls (aged 6–10 years). Results This study revealed that the concordance was poor (accuracy=0.19 (95% confidence interval: 0.14, 0.25)) between US B and TS B among the 221 participants. When our subjects were stratified by weight, we observed a weak association between US B and TS B in the thin/normal weight group (r=0.34, p=0.001) but not in the overweight (r=0.097, p=0.38) or obese groups (r=–0.19, p=0.206), and as the body mass index (BMI) z-score increased, the overestimation ratio of TS B increased. US B manifested a positive correlation with breast bud diameter (BD) (r=0.885, p<0.001), follicle-stimulating hormone (r=0.235, p=0.009), and luteinizing hormone (r=0.192, p=0.037), but this was not the case with TS B. Conclusions As the BMI z-score increased, the correlation between the two methods declined, and the overestimation ratio of TS B increased. US B is an objective and quantitative method used to evaluate breast development, and whether BD might replace US B as a routine diagnostic method to evaluate breast development in clinical practice needs to be confirmed in larger-sample studies.

Censo local sobre consumo de drogas en población escolar

Introduction: Under the framework of social prevention of violence, the results of a survey on drug use in school population in a locality in Guadalupe, Zacatecas, Mexico, are presented. Objective: Determine the prevalence of drug consumption in the local student population. Method: The questionnaire developed by INPRFM for ENCODE 2014 in its version for student age populations was applied. The questionnaire was answered by 96.6% of the population studied (N=1139). Results: 33.3% of the students stated that they had been offered drugs as gifts and 7.9% stated that they had been offered to buy drugs. Lifetime prevalence were 49.4% for alcohol, 37.6% for tobacco and 24.3% for some drugs such as amphetamines, tranquilizers, marijuana, cocaine, crack or rock, inhalants, methamphetamines or heroin. Prevalence of use in the last twelve months were 56.9% for alcohol, 20.1% for tobacco and 13.2% for other drugs. Prevalence of use in the last month were 35.8% for alcohol, 9.1% for tobacco and 9% for other drugs. Discussion: the relevance of a bivariate logistic regression analysis is proposed to study the connection between personal or sociodemographic characteristics with drug use. Two routes of action are proposed: a) Psychosocial, brief interventions adapted to the population and b) Socio-political, influence on the social context of conflict and illegality.