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Comparative Study
. 2021 Dec 21;118(51):e2111454118.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.2111454118.

The US COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey: Continuous real-time measurement of COVID-19 symptoms, risks, protective behaviors, testing, and vaccination

Joshua A Salomon  1   2 , Alex Reinhart  3   4 , Alyssa Bilinski  5 , Eu Jing Chua  4   6 , Wichada La Motte-Kerr  4   6 , Minttu M Rönn  7 , Marissa B Reitsma  8 , Katherine A Morris  9 , Sarah LaRocca  9 , Tamer H Farag  10 , Frauke Kreuter  11   12 , Roni Rosenfeld  4   6 , Ryan J Tibshirani  3   4   6
Affiliations
Comparative Study

The US COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey: Continuous real-time measurement of COVID-19 symptoms, risks, protective behaviors, testing, and vaccination

Joshua A Salomon et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

The US COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey (CTIS) is a large, cross-sectional, internet-based survey that has operated continuously since April 6, 2020. By inviting a random sample of Facebook active users each day, CTIS collects information about COVID-19 symptoms, risks, mitigating behaviors, mental health, testing, vaccination, and other key priorities. The large scale of the survey-over 20 million responses in its first year of operation-allows tracking of trends over short timescales and allows comparisons at fine demographic and geographic detail. The survey has been repeatedly revised to respond to emerging public health priorities. In this paper, we describe the survey methods and content and give examples of CTIS results that illuminate key patterns and trends and help answer high-priority policy questions relevant to the COVID-19 epidemic and response. These results demonstrate how large online surveys can provide continuous, real-time indicators of important outcomes that are not subject to public health reporting delays and backlogs. The CTIS offers high value as a supplement to official reporting data by supplying essential information about behaviors, attitudes toward policy and preventive measures, economic impacts, and other topics not reported in public health surveillance systems.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV2; survey.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Frequency of reported new or unusual symptoms, pooled over respondents to the CTIS, September 8, 2020 to April 5, 2021. Respondents are grouped by whether they indicated they tested positive in the past 14 d. Dots indicate the ratio of frequency among those who tested positive compared to all others.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Trends in anosmia, CLI, CLI in community, confirmed cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, by Census region, April 6, 2020 to April 5, 2021.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Comparison of proportion of respondents in CTIS reporting ever having tested positive for COVID-19 and cumulative proportion of adult population with confirmed COVID diagnosis, by state, September 8, 2020 through April 5, 2021.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Contacts, mask use, and use of public transport, by quartile of counties grouped by the CDC SVI (Top), age group (Middle), and Census region (Bottom), September 8, 2020 to April 5, 2021.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.
Reported vaccine acceptance and hesitancy by age group, race/ethnicity, gender, and Census region (A) and by county (B) during March 2021. Note: Results are pooled over the period March 1, 2021 to April 5, 2021. The map displays results computed for specific counties having at least 50 responses recorded over that period, with all other counties in a state combined into a residual group.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID Data Tracker. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/. Accessed 16 June 2021.
    1. Allen W. E., et al. , Population-scale longitudinal mapping of COVID-19 symptoms, behaviour and testing. Nat. Hum. Behav. 4, 972–982 (2020). - PMC - PubMed
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    1. Menni C., et al. , Real-time tracking of self-reported symptoms to predict potential COVID-19. Nat. Med. 26, 1037–1040 (2020). - PMC - PubMed
    1. United States Census Bureau, Household Pulse Survey (COVID-19). https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/household-pulse-survey.html. Accessed 16 June 2021.

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