Journal
JOURNAL OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
Volume 222, Issue 7, Pages 1086-1089Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiaa429
Keywords
address-based sampling; COVID-19; convenience sampling; seroprevalence; transmission
Categories
Funding
- North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Carolina Population Center [NIH P2C HD050924]
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The recent development and regulatory approval of a variety of serological assays indicating the presence of antibodies against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has led to rapid and widespread implementation of seroprevalence studies. Accurate estimates of seroprevalence are needed to model transmission dynamics and estimate mortality rates. Furthermore, seroprevalence levels in a population help guide policy surrounding reopening efforts. The literature to date has focused heavily on issues surrounding the quality of seroprevalence tests and less on the sampling methods that ultimately drive the representativeness of resulting estimates. Seroprevalence studies based on convenience samples are being reported widely and extrapolated to larger populations for the estimation of total coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections, comparisons of prevalence across geographic regions, and estimation of mortality rates. In this viewpoint, we discuss the pitfalls that can arise with the use of convenience samples and offer guidance for moving towards more representative and timely population estimates of COVID-19 seroprevalence.
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