JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Syndromic surveillance for respiratory infections such as COVID-19 is a crucial part of the public health surveillance toolkit as it allows decision-makers to detect and prepare for new waves of the disease in advance. However, it is labor-intensive, costly, and increases exposure to survey personnel.

Objective:

This study assesses the feasibility of conducting a mobile phone-based respiratory syndromic surveillance program in a middle-income country during a public health emergency, providing data to support the inclusion of this method in the standard infection control protocols at the population level.

Methods:

Two pilots of syndromic mobile phone surveys (MPS) were deployed using interactive voice response (IVR) technology in Colombia (N=367 complete surveys in March 2022 and N=451 complete surveys in April May 2022). Respondents aged 18 and older were sampled using random digit dialing (RDD) and after consent, they were sent a 10-minute survey with modules on sociodemographic status, respiratory symptoms, past exposure to COVID-19 infection and vaccination status, preferences about COVID-19 vaccination, and information source for COVID-19. Pilot 1 used a nationally representative sample while pilot 2 used quota sampling to yield representative results at the regional level. In this work, we assessed the performance characteristics of the survey pilots and compared the demographic information collected with a nationally representative household survey.

Results:

For both pilots, contact rates were between 1% and 2%, while participation rates were above 80%. Results revealed that younger, female, and higher educated participants were more likely to participate in the syndromic survey. Survey rates as well as demographics, COVID-19 vaccination status, and prevalence of respiratory symptoms are reported for both pilots. We found that respondents of the MPS are more likely to be younger and female.

Conclusions:

In a COVID-19 pandemic setting, using an IVR MPS to conduct syndromic surveillance may be a transformational, low-risk, and feasible method to detect outbreaks. This evaluation expects to provide a path forward to the inclusion of MPS as a traditional surveillance method.