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Review
. 2023 Apr;8(4):e311-e317.
doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(23)00046-4.

Effectiveness assessment of non-pharmaceutical interventions: lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic

Adrian Lison  1 , Nicolas Banholzer  2 , Mrinank Sharma  3 , Sören Mindermann  4 , H Juliette T Unwin  5 , Swapnil Mishra  6 , Tanja Stadler  1 , Samir Bhatt  7 , Neil M Ferguson  5 , Jan Brauner  8 , Werner Vach  9
Affiliations
Review

Effectiveness assessment of non-pharmaceutical interventions: lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic

Adrian Lison et al. Lancet Public Health. 2023 Apr.

Abstract

Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such as school closures and stay-at-home orders, during the COVID-19 pandemic has been assessed in many studies. Such assessments can inform public health policies and contribute to evidence-based choices of NPIs during subsequent waves or future epidemics. However, methodological issues and no standardised assessment practices have restricted the practical value of the existing evidence. Here, we present and discuss lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and make recommendations for standardising and improving assessment, data collection, and modelling. These recommendations could contribute to reliable and policy-relevant assessments of the effectiveness of NPIs during future epidemics.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests TS was a member of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force from March, 2020, to March, 2022, and its President from August, 2021, to March, 2022. TS has been President of the Swiss COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Panel since November, 2022. TS acknowledges service contracts with the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health on sequencing of Swiss SARS-CoV-2 samples, computation of effective reproduction numbers from wastewater data, and SARS-CoV-2 variant tracking and nowcasting. NMF undertook consultancy work for the World Bank Group on infectious disease threats until 2019, and was supported with travel expenses by WHO for WHO meetings. All other authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Empirical studies assessing the effectiveness of NPIs during the first wave (from Jan 2020 to June 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic (A) Cumulative number of studies by date of submission and geographical region (coloured bars), together with the start of NPIs in different countries and regions (coloured lines and arrows) based on categories C1M–C7M of the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. (B) Proportion of studies by assessment and modelling approach. All study counts and statistics were compiled from Banholzer and colleagues, and include only peer-reviewed studies. NPI=non-pharmaceutical intervention.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic overview of effectiveness assessment Reliable assessments of NPI effectiveness require consistent outcome data with meta-information, and carefully collected raw intervention data allowing application of different coding. Data should be analysed considering both variation between populations and over time. By use of mechanistic modelling, the effectiveness of NPIs should be related to relative changes in transmission. Modelling approaches should be tested and compared with rigorous model validation and sensitivity analyses. Effectiveness should be assessed for individual NPIs, accounting for uncertainty and variation between populations. In the figure, sources of uncertainty are marked with dashed outline. NPI=non-pharmaceutical intervention. +=and.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. Brauner JM, Mindermann S, Sharma M, et al. Inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against COVID-19. Science. 2021;371 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Banholzer N, van Weenen E, Lison A, et al. Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the number of new infections with COVID-19 during the first epidemic wave. PLoS One. 2021;16 - PMC - PubMed

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