Higher education responses to COVID-19 in the United States: Evidence for the impacts of university policy.
Higher education responses to COVID-19 in the United States: Evidence for the impacts of university policy.
复制标题
DOI：
10.1371/journal.pdig.0000065
复制
发表时间：
2022-06
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
利用来自美国1,400多所高等教育机构（IHE）的测试和病例计数数据集，我们分析了2020年秋季学期（2020年8月至12月）期间这些IHE周围各县的SARS-CoV-2感染和死亡人数。我们发现，在2020年秋季学期，主要保持在线的IHE县的病例和死亡人数较少;而在学期前后，这两个组的COVID-19发病率几乎相同。此外，我们看到，与没有报告进行任何校园检测的县相比，IHE报告进行任何校园检测的县的病例和死亡人数较少。为了进行这两种比较，我们使用了一种匹配程序，旨在创建尽可能沿着年龄、种族、收入、人口和城市/农村类别（已被证明与COVID-19结果相关的人口统计变量）对齐的均衡的县组。最后，我们在马萨诸塞州IHE的案例研究，特别是在我们的宣传册高度详细的状态，这进一步突出了IHE附属的测试更广泛的社会的重要性。这项工作的结果表明，校园测试本身可以被视为一种缓解政策，向IHE分配额外资源以支持定期测试学生和工作人员的努力，将有利于在疫苗接种前的环境中缓解COVID-19的传播。持续的COVID-19大流行颠覆了个人、公共和机构生活，迫使许多人在数据有限的情况下就如何最好地保护自己和社区做出决定。特别是，高等教育机构（IHE）不得不在没有广泛数据的情况下就校园COVID-19政策做出艰难的选择。为了更好地了解IHE政策与COVID-19缓解之间的关系，我们收集了美国1，400多家IHE的检测、病例和校园政策数据，并分析了这些IHE周围县的COVID-19感染和死亡人数。我们的研究发现，在2020年秋季学期期间，主要在线的IHE县的病例和死亡人数较少-控制年龄，种族，收入，人口和城市/农村指定。在那些亲自返回的IHE县中，我们看到那些报告进行了任何校园测试的IHE县的死亡人数比那些没有报告的要少。我们的研究表明，校园检测可被视为另一项有用的缓解政策，向高等教育机构分配额外资源，以支持定期对学生和工作人员进行检测，将有利于控制COVID-19在普通人群中的传播。
With a dataset of testing and case counts from over 1,400 institutions of higher education (IHEs) in the United States, we analyze the number of infections and deaths from SARS-CoV-2 in the counties surrounding these IHEs during the Fall 2020 semester (August to December, 2020). We find that counties with IHEs that remained primarily online experienced fewer cases and deaths during the Fall 2020 semester; whereas before and after the semester, these two groups had almost identical COVID-19 incidence. Additionally, we see fewer cases and deaths in counties with IHEs that reported conducting any on-campus testing compared to those that reported none. To perform these two comparisons, we used a matching procedure designed to create well-balanced groups of counties that are aligned as much as possible along age, race, income, population, and urban/rural categories—demographic variables that have been shown to be correlated with COVID-19 outcomes. We conclude with a case study of IHEs in Massachusetts—a state with especially high detail in our dataset—which further highlights the importance of IHE-affiliated testing for the broader community. The results in this work suggest that campus testing can itself be thought of as a mitigation policy and that allocating additional resources to IHEs to support efforts to regularly test students and staff would be beneficial to mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in a pre-vaccine environment. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has upended personal, public, and institutional life and has forced many to make decisions with limited data on how to best protect themselves and their communities. In particular, institutes of higher education (IHEs) have had to make difficult choices regarding campus COVID-19 policy without extensive data to inform their decisions. To better understand the relationship between IHE policy and COVID-19 mitigation, we collected data on testing, cases, and campus policy from over 1,400 IHEs in the United States and analyzed the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the counties surrounding these IHEs. Our study found that counties with IHEs that remained primarily online experienced fewer cases and deaths during the Fall 2020 semester—controlling for age, race, income, population, and urban/rural designation. Among counties with IHEs that did return in-person, we see fewer deaths in counties with IHEs that reported conducting any on-campus testing compared to those that reported none. Our study suggests that campus testing can be seen as another useful mitigation policy and that allocating additional resources to IHEs to support efforts to regularly test students and staff would be beneficial to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the general population.