Testing Testing 1-2-3

COVID-19 BlogCOVID-relevant
Written By Adriann Gin

This is part of a series of posts highlighting results from the Hawaii COVID Contact Tracking Survey conducted by the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC) and the Pacific Urban Resilience Lab (PURL) at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The Hawaii Data Collaborative has partnered with this group to share regular analyses and updates from this survey in the coming weeks. If you have not done so already, we encourage you to participate in the survey here.

It should come as no surprise that many people believe more testing is needed for the Coronavirus in Hawaii. In general, respondents of our survey perceive that access to testing is insufficient. Many survey participants expressed frustration with the inability to meet the criteria for testing, despite showing symptoms or other factors they believe warrant COVID-19 testing. In addition, home test kits were mentioned numerous times as one preferred method to ensure greater access to adequate testing.

Not only did respondents recommend more tests be administered, but they also wanted the types of tests and those who qualify for testing to be vastly expanded. They wanted fast, accurate and widely accessible testing for all residents, especially for all essential workers, for individuals who have been in contact with those who tested positive, and for all new arrivals at airports.

The sentiments came in response to an open-ended question of the Hawaii COVID Contact Tracking Survey, providing participants with an opportunity to voice opinions regarding what should be done to combat COVID-19 in Hawaii:

Is there something in particular that you think should be done to fight COVID-19 in Hawaii?

Out of 11,207 total responses to the question, approximately 17% suggested that a form of widespread or expanded testing should take place, while less than 1% suggested that only those with symptoms should be tested. Approximately 2% of respondents also suggested that antibody testing should be widely conducted in Hawaii to reveal those who may have been previously infected with the virus or may have developed an immunity (Table-1).

Table 1.png

Analysis of the responses reveals that the respondents value testing as the primary strategy to combat the spread of the disease. Stay-at-home orders and wearing a mask were also viewed as key components to mitigate the pandemic locally. Survey results were analyzed by word frequency using qualitative data analysis software. The word 'test' had the highest overall frequency among the response language (Table 2). “Home” and “mask” also ranked highly as the third and fifth most frequently appearing words.

Table 2.png
 
Figure 1

Figure 1

 

To gain greater insight into the context of these high frequency words, a secondary analysis was run involving the examination of the five words immediately preceding and succeeding each select word. Findings of this analysis reveal that “more,” “widespread” and “antibody” are the three most frequently used words associated with the root term “test” (Figure 2). In the same way, "at,” "stay" and "order" are the three most frequently used terms associated with the word "home". For "mask," the most frequently used terms are "wear," "face" and "wearing.”

Figure 2

Figure 2

In short, the desire for testing of all residents and visitors is a key takeaway from our survey. Moreover, denial for testing because they did not meet state requirements was a major point of contention and frustration among those surveyed.

 
Adriann Gin
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