Tracking COVID-19 Infections Using Survey Data on Rapid At-Home Tests

Importance  Identifying and tracking new infections during an emerging pandemic is crucial to design and deploy interventions to protect populations and mitigate the pandemic’s effects, yet it remains a challenging task.

Objective  To characterize the ability of nonprobability online surveys to longitudinally estimate the number of COVID-19 infections in the population both in the presence and absence of institutionalized testing.

Design, Setting, and Participants  Internet-based online nonprobability surveys were conducted among residents aged 18 years or older across 50 US states and the District of Columbia, using the PureSpectrum survey vendor, approximately every 6 weeks between June 1, 2020, and January 31, 2023, for a multiuniversity consortium—the COVID States Project. Surveys collected information on COVID-19 infections with representative state-level quotas applied to balance age, sex, race and ethnicity, and geographic distribution.

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