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Tracking Changes in Mobility Before and After the First SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination Using Global Positioning System Data in England and Wales (Virus Watch): Prospective Observational Community Cohort Study.

Nguyen, Vincent; Liu, Yunzhe; Mumford, Richard; Flanagan, Benjamin; Patel, Parth; Braithwaite, Isobel; Shrotri, Madhumita; ... Virus Watch Collaborative; + view all (2023) Tracking Changes in Mobility Before and After the First SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination Using Global Positioning System Data in England and Wales (Virus Watch): Prospective Observational Community Cohort Study. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance , 9 , Article e38072. 10.2196/38072. Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that individuals may change adherence to public health policies aimed at reducing the contact, transmission, and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus after they receive their first SARS-CoV-2 vaccination when they are not fully vaccinated. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to estimate changes in median daily travel distance of our cohort from their registered addresses before and after receiving a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. METHODS: Participants were recruited into Virus Watch starting in June 2020. Weekly surveys were sent out to participants, and vaccination status was collected from January 2021 onward. Between September 2020 and February 2021, we invited 13,120 adult Virus Watch participants to contribute toward our tracker subcohort, which uses the GPS via a smartphone app to collect data on movement. We used segmented linear regression to estimate the median daily travel distance before and after the first self-reported SARS-CoV-2 vaccine dose. RESULTS: We analyzed the daily travel distance of 249 vaccinated adults. From 157 days prior to vaccination until the day before vaccination, the median daily travel distance was 9.05 (IQR 8.06-10.09) km. From the day of vaccination to 105 days after vaccination, the median daily travel distance was 10.08 (IQR 8.60-12.42) km. From 157 days prior to vaccination until the vaccination date, there was a daily median decrease in mobility of 40.09 m (95% CI -50.08 to -31.10; P<.001). After vaccination, there was a median daily increase in movement of 60.60 m (95% CI 20.90-100; P<.001). Restricting the analysis to the third national lockdown (January 4, 2021, to April 5, 2021), we found a median daily movement increase of 18.30 m (95% CI -19.20 to 55.80; P=.57) in the 30 days prior to vaccination and a median daily movement increase of 9.36 m (95% CI 38.6-149.00; P=.69) in the 30 days after vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates the feasibility of collecting high-volume geolocation data as part of research projects and the utility of these data for understanding public health issues. Our various analyses produced results that ranged from no change in movement after vaccination (during the third national lock down) to an increase in movement after vaccination (considering all periods, up to 105 days after vaccination), suggesting that, among Virus Watch participants, any changes in movement distances after vaccination are small. Our findings may be attributable to public health measures in place at the time such as movement restrictions and home working that applied to the Virus Watch cohort participants during the study period.

Type: Article
Title: Tracking Changes in Mobility Before and After the First SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination Using Global Positioning System Data in England and Wales (Virus Watch): Prospective Observational Community Cohort Study.
Location: Canada
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.2196/38072
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.2196/38072
Language: English
Additional information: ©Vincent Nguyen, Yunzhe Liu, Richard Mumford, Benjamin Flanagan, Parth Patel, Isobel Braithwaite, Madhumita Shrotri, Thomas Byrne, Sarah Beale, Anna Aryee, Wing Lam Erica Fong, Ellen Fragaszy, Cyril Geismar, Annalan M D Navaratnam, Pia Hardelid, Jana Kovar, Addy Pope, Tao Cheng, Andrew Hayward, Robert Aldridge, Virus Watch Collaborative. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (https://publichealth.jmir.org), 08.03.2023. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://publichealth.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
Keywords: COVID-19, GPS, SARS-CoV-2, geographical tracking, geolocation, global positioning system, health application, mHealth, mobile app, mobile surveillance, movement tracking, public health, surveillance, tracking device, vaccination, Adult, Humans, Wales, COVID-19 Vaccines, SARS-CoV-2, Cohort Studies, Geographic Information Systems, COVID-19, Communicable Disease Control, England, Vaccination, Self Report
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Health Informatics
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Civil, Environ and Geomatic Eng
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Health Informatics > Infectious Disease Informatics
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health > Population, Policy and Practice Dept
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10166447
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