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Principal Investigator: Reynold Alexander Panettieri
Organization: RUTGERS BIOMEDICAL/HEALTH SCIENCES-RBHS
Fiscal Year: 2021
Award: $1,200,946
Funding agency: National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
SUMMARY
The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately impacts members of under-represented minority (URM) communi-
ties. Unfortunately, URM and other vulnerable communities remain profoundly under-tested. As such, new ap-
proaches are needed to disseminate and accomplish testing that could be generalized across the US. New Jersey
can serve as a unique, virtual testing laboratory, ranking 11th in the US in population, 2nd in the US (after NY) in the
per capita rate of COVID-19 deaths, and 5th in total cases and represents a highly diverse state with substantial
Black and Latinx minority populations. At Rutgers, we have assembled cohorts of healthcare workers (HCWs) to
monitor the spread of COVID-19 and to enroll subjects for clinical and vaccine trials. While building our cohorts,
we recognized many URMs serve as HCWs or personal care aides often in lower-income roles. Further, we also
found these workers were more often infected compared with those with higher income occupations. Given these
observations, we posit that HCWs in occupations at lower incomes would facilitate testing among their house-
holds and their communities. In a sense, these HCWs can serve as ambassadors to catalyze community-based
COVID-19 testing. NJ HEROES TOO (New Jersey Healthcare Essential WoRker Outreach and Education Study
- Testing Overlooked Occupations) proposes to approach URM HCWs who we have identified as index individu-
als who will act as ambassadors to help expand testing in their households and extended networks. In Aim 1, we
will co-design, develop and implement an innovative, HCW-centric outreach intervention strategy to engage Black
and Latinx minority communities. We will explore community perceptions about COVID-19 testing, treatment, and
vaccination to design COVID-19 testing materials and messages that are culturally tailored to address concerns
of Black and Latinx minority communities. In Aim 2, we will conduct a mixed methods study to evaluate the effec-
tiveness and cost of: (1) the HCW-focused outreach intervention strategy versus (2) standard community engaged
outreach, working with community based organizations (CBOs). We will explore contextual factors (individual,
family, and community) affecting COVID-19 testing implementation outcomes and scalability. The primary out-
come will be uptake of COVID-19 testing in the targeted populations. We propose testing with the novel Rutgers
Clinical Genomics Laboratory/RUCDR saliva test, the first FDA-authorized diagnostic test using saliva to detect
SARS-CoV-2 for non-invasive, home based self-testing. We hypothesize that a participatory outreach strategy
approach focused on identified index HCWs will mobilize quicker uptake of testing within community settings than
best-practice CBO recruitment approaches. We also hypothesize that recruitment through index HCWs will be
more successful for hard to reach participants compared to a traditional CBO approach. The strategy focusing on
HCWs could easily be expanded to other front-line and essential workers, making the strategy generalizable and
sustainable.
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Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 epidemic><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 pandemic><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-associated coronavirus 2><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-related coronavirus 2><Severe acute respiratory syndrome associated corona virus 2><Severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 epidemic><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic><Severe acute respiratory syndrome related corona virus 2><Target Populations><Task Forces><Testing><Training and Outreach><Translational Research><Translational Science><Transmission><Trust><Tutoring and Outreach><Underrepresented Ethnic Minority><Underrepresented Minority><United States><Vaccination><Visiting Nurse><Vulnerable Populations><Wages><Woman><Wood><Wood material><Work><Work Location><Work Place><Work-Site><Workplace><Worksite><Wuhan coronavirus><active 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