Evaluation of the US Definitions for Coronavirus Disease 2019 Community Risk Levels

Sina Mokhtar; Alyssa S Parpia; Nathan C Lo; Martial L Ndeffo-Mbah

doi:10.1093/cid/ciac922

Evaluation of the US Definitions for Coronavirus Disease 2019 Community Risk Levels

Clin Infect Dis. 2023 Apr 17;76(8):1496-1499. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciac922.

Authors

Sina Mokhtar^{1

2}, Alyssa S Parpia^{3

4}, Nathan C Lo⁵, Martial L Ndeffo-Mbah^{2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Statistics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
² Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
³ Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁴ Public Health Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁵ Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
⁶ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.

Abstract

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines a county metric of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) community levels to inform public health measures. We find that the COVID-19 community levels vary frequently over time, which may not be optimal for decision making. Alternative metric formulations that do not compromise predictive ability are shown to reduce variability.

Keywords: COVID-19; community risk level; consistency.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

COVID-19*
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.
Humans
Public Health
SARS-CoV-2
United States / epidemiology

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding