Elsevier

One Health

Volume 15, December 2022, 100422
One Health

A standardized instrument quantifying risk factors associated with bi-directional transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other zoonotic pathogens: The COVID-19 human-animal interactions survey (CHAIS)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.onehlt.2022.100422Get rights and content
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open access

Highlights

  • The CHAIS instrument is a standardized instrument evaluating risk factors for bi-directional CoV-2 zoonotic transmission

  • It evaluates settings where humans and animals share close contact, mainly households

  • It is highly adaptable for investigating other zoonotic pathogens such as influenza viruses

  • It will enable pooling of data across studies for meta-analyses to improve predictive models

  • It can help inform public health prevention and mitigation measures

Abstract

Similar to many zoonotic pathogens which transmit from animals to humans, SARS-CoV-2 (CoV-2), the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, most likely originated in Rhinolophus bats before spreading among humans globally. Early into the pandemic, reports of CoV-2 diagnoses in animals from various countries emerged. While most CoV-2 positive animals were confirmed to have been in close contact with CoV-2 positive humans, there has been a paucity of published evidence to-date describing risk factors associated with CoV-2 transmission among humans and animals. The COVID-19 Human-Animal Interactions Survey (CHAIS) was developed to provide a standardized instrument describing human-animal interactions during the pandemic and to evaluate behavioral, spatiotemporal, and biological risk factors associated with bi-directional zoonotic transmission of CoV-2 within shared environments, predominantly households with limited information about human-wildlife or human-livestock interactions. CHAIS measures four broad domains of transmission risk: 1) risk and intensity of infection in human hosts, 2) spatial characteristics of shared environments, 3) behaviors and human-animal interactions, and 4) susceptible animal subpopulations. Following the development of CHAIS, with a One Health approach, a multidisciplinary group of experts (n = 20) was invited to review and provide feedback on the survey for content validity. Expert feedback was incorporated into two final survey formats—an extended version and an abridged version for which specific core questions addressing zoonotic and reverse zoonotic transmission were identified. Both versions are modularized, with each section having the capacity to serve as independent instruments, allowing researchers to customize the survey based on context and research-specific needs. Further adaptations for studies seeking to investigate other zoonotic pathogens with similar routes of transmission (i.e. respiratory, direct contact) are also possible. The CHAIS instrument is a standardized human-animal interaction survey developed to provide important data on risk factors that guide transmission of CoV-2, and other similar pathogens, among humans and animals.

Keywords

COVID-19
Household transmission
Human-animal interaction
Reverse zoonotic transmission
Zoonotic transmission
SARS-CoV-2

Cited by (0)

1

These authors should be considered joint first authors

2

These authors should be considered joint senior authors

3

Edward Baker, South Bay Veterinary Group, USA; Anne Barnhill, Johns Hopkins University, USA; Nicola Decaro, University of Bari, Italy; Janet Forrester, Tufts University, USA; Charles Frevert, University of Washington, USA; Gregory Gray, Duke University, USA; David Lee-Parritz, Tufts University, USA; Deborah Linder, Tufts University, USA; Julianne Meisner, University of Washington, USA; Dan Morris, University of Pennsylvania, USA; Megan Mueller, Tufts University, USA; Felicia Nutter, Tufts University, USA; Danielle Ompad, New York University, USA; Peter Rabinowitz, University of Washington, USA; Marieke Rosenbaum, Tufts University, USA; Ron Rubenstein, Washington University, USA; Adam South, Tufts University, USA; Jean Van Seventer, Boston University, USA; Lee Wetzler, Boston University, USA; and Eugene White, Tufts University, USA.