Bern, Get Ready (BEready) Cohort Study for Pandemic Preparedness

Recruiting

• Conditions: Pandemic, COVID-19; Infections; Zoonoses; Epidemic Disease; Respiratory Tract Infections

• Registration Number: NCT06739499
• Lead Sponsor: University of Bern

Brief Summary

The BEready project aims to find out how people in the Canton of Bern can be helped to be more prepared for the next pandemic. BEready wants to understand how infections spread among people as well as between people and animals. BEready wants to find out how social and environmental factors can influence the transmission or catching of infectious diseases. BEready wants to better understand how households and their pets in the Canton of Bern were and continue to be affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Detailed Description

The overall aim is to establish BEready as a 'pandemic preparedness cohort', a cohort with a well-characterised study population of households, which has an infrastructure to conduct studies about infectious diseases, and which can be rapidly mobilised to respond to a new pandemic. BEready aims to understand the epidemiology and transmission of infectious diseases (particularly viral respiratory pathogens) in households including pets in the canton of Bern, and to engage diverse communities in efforts to strengthen pandemic preparedness.

The objectives are:

* to study the distribution and timing of infectious diseases and transmission patterns of circulating infectious diseases, both between individuals and at the human-animal interface (One Health)

* to study social (e.g. gender, affective polarisation) and environmental factors (e.g. climate change), which may affect transmission or acquisition of infectious diseases;

* to understand how households, including their pets, in the canton of Bern have been and will be affected by COVID-19; and

* to engage diverse communities in ongoing efforts to strengthen pandemic and public health literacy, and to prepare for the public health response to a new pandemic.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2024-04-29
• Status Verified: 2024-12
• Study First Submitted: 2024-12-09
• Study First Submitted QC: 2024-12-12
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-12-12
• Study First Posted: 2024-12-18
• Last Update Posted: 2024-12-18
• Primary Completion: 2100-12-31
• Study Completion: 2100-12-31

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 2500

Inclusion Criteria

Not provided

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Response rate among the randomly sampled participants	Baseline	Percentage agreeing to take part, divided by the number invited, by age and sex (study level)
Attendance of follow up visits (to derive factors associated with research participation)	At every annual follow-up for up to 100 years	Percentage of completed questionnaire (study level)
Incidence of respiratory virus detection in symptomatic persons	At the end of a 12 months period	Test positivity: percentage of nasal swab samples with a positive result for specific respiratory viruses among all viruses detected amongst those reporting disease events cumulatively by the end of one year; incidence rate for any detected virus and for specific viruses: number of nasal swab samples with a positive result per 100 person years of follow-up (individual level, infection-related)
Seroprevalence of antibodies to respiratory viruses	At baseline and annually thereafter for up to 100 years	Proportion of serum samples with antibodies to specific respiratory viruses (individual level, infection-related)
Incidence of co-infection/co-colonisation at the pet/owner interface	Throughout follow-up for up to 100 years	Proportion of serum samples with antibodies to specific parasites (individual level, infection-related)
Incidence of animal diseases diagnosed through syndromic surveillance	Throughout follow-up for up to 100 years	Based on each case definition, e.g. febrile illness, incidence of syndromic diagnoses by month (individual level, infection-related)
Prevalence of post-acute viral symptoms	At baseline and annually thereafter for up to 100 years	Individual level, infection-related
Gender roles	At all timepoints for up to 100 years	Gender is a cross-cutting theme. Associations with gender measured by questionnaire will be examined for all endpoints (individual level, personal, social, demographic).
Knowledge of vector-borne diseases	At baseline	Knowledge measured by questionnaire. Summary of the survey data (individual level, personal, social, demographic)
Number of daily social contacts	At baseline and annually thereafter for up to 100 years	Numbers of social contacts between humans, according to age group and location (individual level, personal, social, demographic)
Affective polarisation	At baseline	Mean and standard deviation of Likert scale scores (individual level, personal, social, demographic)
Knowledge of pandemic preparedness	At baseline	Knowledge measured by questionnaire. Summary of the survey data (individual level, personal, social, demographic)
Experienced marginalisation	At baseline	Experience measured by questionnaire. Summary of the survey data (individual level, personal, social, demographic)

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of Bern; 🇨🇭 Bern, Switzerland