Community Network-driven COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination of Vulnerable Populations in the Central US

Not Applicable

Completed

Conditions: Covid19

Interventions: Other: Social Network Strategy + COVID-19 messaging

Registration Number: NCT04743908

Lead Sponsor: University of Chicago

Brief Summary: This C3 project, Community network-driven COVID-19 testing of vulnerable populations in the Central US, will implement and evaluate a COVID-19 testing and vaccination approach that combines an evidence-based Social Network Testing Strategy (SNS) with community developed COVID-19 public health messages (SNS+). C3 will engage two disenfranchised populations across rural and urban sites in states across the Central US (Texas (TX), Louisiana (LA), Arkansas (AR), Indiana (IN), Illinois (IL)). C3 leverages NIDA's Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN), the PIs' extensive community located COVID-19 testing programs, and a network of established community partnerships. The collaborative community-academic partnerships, research and engagement infrastructure, and team's leadership across JCOIN will ensure that C3 can rapidly recruit, enroll and test most disenfranchised community members, (n=2400) and through this process, accelerate any forthcoming COVID-19 public health prevention interventions. C3 focuses on two communities most impacted by COVID-19: 1) Criminal justice involved (CJI) - non-incarcerated people with previous history of arrest/jail/prison, probation/parole, drug-court attendance, witnessed or experienced a negative interaction with police or law enforcement; and 2) Low-income Latinx - community members at 250% or below Federal Poverty Level. Both of these diverse populations, and the overlap between them, have some of the highest rates of COVID-19 infection and death in the United States. Messaging that affirms individual agency and corrects misinformation, combined with accessible and acceptable testing, is required to accelerate COVID-19 prevention for these populations.Using a two-arm randomized controlled trial design, participants will be enrolled into the Social Network testing Strategy (SNS) arm (involves social networking referrals only) or the Social Network testing Strategy with COVID-19 prevention messages (SNS+) messaging arm. The latter includes affirmation/misinformation correction messaging (discussion tools and coaching). SNS and SNS+messaging arms will both include an initial group of index study participants who will refer their network members into the study and the process will repeat itself one more time for a total of 3 waves. Indexes will refer network members (1st degree) and then those network members will refer one more round (2nd degree).

Detailed Description: Not available

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: COMPLETED

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 1328

Inclusion Criteria

Not provided

Exclusion Criteria

inability to provide informed consent; and
active COVID-19 symptoms per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Participants with COVID-19 symptoms will be referred for free testing at existing partners for each of the study sites.
currently on parole
for the University of Indiana site, currently in foster care, on house arrest, on probation, detained at a federal facility or had a police encounter during which the officer(s) either asked for some form of identification and/or issued a traffic ticket, but did not have other CJI involvement.

Study & Design

Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL

Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Social Network Strategy + Messaging	Social Network Strategy + COVID-19 messaging	Study staff will describe the Social Network Strategy, construct a plan for successfully referring network members into the study, and discuss compensation for the recruitment efforts. Study staff will specifically discuss network members of interest: "friend, family, coworker or someone you spend time with on a regular basis". Walk through and scenario play will be strategies to assist with planning regarding: (1) how the conversation will be raised, (2) how potential barriers to testing will be addressed, (3) how the screening by phone or web survey will be conducted, (4) how network members will have the option to bring others into the study visit with them, (5) what information about the study will be shared. Finally, community developed COVID-19 public health messages will be shared in the participant's preferred language.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Total Number of Tests Among Network Members Referred for COVID Testing (Network Tested).	21 days from initial study visit for each participant	Network tested is measured at the participant level by the number of network members that are tested through the SNS.
Total Number of Vaccinations Among Study Participants Given COVID Vaccine Information (Number Vaccinated)	21 days from initial study visit for each participant	Number vaccinated is measured at the participant level by the number of study participants that are vaccinated through the SNS.

Secondary Outcome Measures