{"doi":"10.17615/aqj2-d114","title":"North Carolina public school teachers’ contact patterns and mask use within and outside of school during the pre-vaccine phase of the COVID-19 pandemic","abstract":"Background : Teachers are central to school-associated transmission networks, but little is known about their behavioral patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods : We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 700 North Carolina public school teachers in four districts open to in-person learning in November-December 2020 (pre-COVID-19 vaccines). We assessed indoor and outdoor time spent, numbers of people encountered at <6 feet (“close contacts”), and mask use by teachers and those around them at specific locations on the most recent weekday and weekend day. Results : Nearly all respondents reported indoor time at home (98%) and school (94%) on the most recent weekday, while 62% reported indoor time at stores, 18% at someone else's home, and 17% at bars/restaurants. Responses were similar for the most recent weekend day, excepting school (where 5% reported indoor time). Most teachers (>94%) reported wearing masks inside school, stores, and salons; intermediate percentages (∼50%-85%) inside places of worship, bars/restaurants, and recreational settings; and few (<25%) in their or others’ homes. Approximately half reported daily close contact with students. Conclusions : As schools reopened in the COVID-19 pandemic, potential transmission opportunities arose through close contacts within and outside of school, along with suboptimal mask use by teachers and/or those around them. Our granular estimates underscore the importance of multi-layered mitigation strategies and can inform interventions and mathematical models addressing school-associated transmission.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2022,"id":314061,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9219,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":109254,"name":"Allison E. Aiello","orcid":"0000-0001-7029-2537","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":798938,"name":"Kristin M. Sullivan","orcid":"0000-0001-6810-4998","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":590480,"name":"Peyton Thompson","orcid":"0000-0002-9679-9763","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":334760,"name":"Bonnie E. Shook‐Sa","orcid":"0000-0001-9506-4047","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":621144,"name":"Sabrina Zadrozny","orcid":"0000-0002-8811-8868","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":798939,"name":"Rosemary Byrnes","orcid":"0000-0002-6519-3398","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":798940,"name":"Douglas Lee Lauen","orcid":"0000-0003-0213-6086","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":236547,"name":"Whitney R. Robinson","orcid":"0000-0003-4009-0488","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":11272,"name":"Penny Gordon-Larsen","orcid":"0000-0001-5322-4188","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":799396,"name":"David A. Bogojevich","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":591009,"name":"K.A. Powers","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:33:48.490749Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}