Facemasks: Perceptions and use in an ED population during COVID-19

Study Design and Setting We conducted this secondary analysis of a previously published study regarding ED patients perceptions’ of COVID-19 vaccination.[13] The parent study was a prospective, cross-sectional survey of ED patients at 15 safety net EDs in 14 US cities. The University of California Institutional Review Board approved this study. Verbal consent was obtained. Data Processing Participant ethnicity (Latinx/non-Latinx) and race were self-reported. We categorized those who self-identified as any race other than Latinx as ‘reported race’, non-Latinx (i.e. Black, non-Latinx and White, non-Latinx). If the patient identified themselves as Latinx, they were placed in that category and not in that of any other race. If an individual identified as more than one non-Latinx race, they were categorized as multiracial. Individuals who reported that they were currently applying for health insurance, were unsure if they were insured, or if their response to the question was missing (18 respondents) were categorized as uninsured in a binary variable, and separate analysis was done based on type of insurance reported. The survey submitted in our supplement (S1) is the version used at the lead site. Each of the remaining sites revised their survey to include wording applicable to their community (i.e., the site in Los Angeles changed Healthy San Francisco to Healthy Los Angeles), and these local community health plans were coded together. We identified individuals who reported English and Spanish as their primary language, and grouped those who reported Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Tagalog, or Other as “Other” primary language. With regards to gender, we categorized those who identified as gender queer, nonbinary, trans man and trans woman as “other”. Study Outcomes and Key Variables Our primary outcome was subjects’ response to the question, “Do you wear a mask when you are outside of your home when you are around other people?” with answer choices a) always, b) most of the time (more than 50%), c) sometimes, but less than half of the time (less than 50%), and d) I never wear a mask. Respondents were provided with these percentages to help quantify their responses. We stratified respondents into two groups: those who responded always or most of the time as “wears masks over half the time” and those who responded sometimes or never as “wears masks less than half the time. We sorted each of the 15 sites into four geographic regions within the United States. There were 3 sites located in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania which we categorized in the Northeast region. We categorized 3 sites in Michigan and Iowa as Midwest, and 3 sites in North Carolina, Louisiana, and Maryland as the South. There were 6 sites located on the West Coast from California and Washington State.