Communities Fighting COVID!

Given observed disparities in COVID-19 morbidity, hospitalization, and mortality across race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, there is a great need to increase testing access and uptake with rapid return of test results. Therefore, a community health worker (CHW)-led approach to facilitate COVID-19 testing for underserved populations, with a focus on increasing testing access, uptake, and impact among Latinx, African American, Filipino, and immigrant communities using different testing implementation strategies was proposed. This project utilized COVID-19 contact tracing and community partner infrastructure to reach individuals aged 6 and above exposed or at risk of COVID-19 exposure. Mobile and home-based testing strategies for increasing testing uptake among contacts, referred high-risk friends and family, and the broader community were evaluated. The specific aims of this project were to: 1) Implement COVID-19 testing integrated into community health worker contact tracing home visits and compare the subsequent uptake of testing for referred high-risk friends and family in a mobile testing vs. home-based testing approach; 2) Using a community-led rapid cycle research process, identify effective strategies to promote uptake of COVID-19 testing through mobile/pop-up testing for Latinx, African American, Filipino, and immigrant populations exposed or at risk of exposure to COVID-19; 3) Gather CHW and community insights to establish best practices for future scale-up and sustainability. The project contributed to health disparity reductions in COVID-19 morbidity and mortality and produce high impact through core strengths in drawing on local knowledge, the team's existing community partnerships, use of culturally-competent community healthcare workers, point-of-care rapid and inexpensive testing, and the use of geospatial data to prioritize locations for mobile pop-up testing. This focus on underserved populations with high COVID-19 exposures informed both future testing and vaccination efforts.