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Review
. 2020 Dec 15;136(1):46-87.
doi: 10.1093/bmb/ldaa030.

Narrative review of non-pharmaceutical behavioural measures for the prevention of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) based on the Health-EDRM framework

Emily Ying Yang Chan  1   2   3   4 , Tayyab Salim Shahzada  3   4 , Tiffany Sze Tung Sham  3   4 , Caroline Dubois  1   4 , Zhe Huang  1   3 , Sida Liu  1   4 , Janice Ying-En Ho  1 , Kevin K C Hung  1   3   5 , Kin On Kwok  3 , Rajib Shaw  6
Affiliations
Review

Narrative review of non-pharmaceutical behavioural measures for the prevention of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) based on the Health-EDRM framework

Emily Ying Yang Chan et al. Br Med Bull. .

Abstract

Introduction: Non-pharmaceutical measures to facilitate a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a disease caused by novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, are urgently needed. Using the World Health Organization (WHO) health emergency and disaster risk management (health-EDRM) framework, behavioural measures for droplet-borne communicable diseases and their enabling and limiting factors at various implementation levels were evaluated.

Sources of data: Keyword search was conducted in PubMed, Google Scholar, Embase, Medline, Science Direct, WHO and CDC online publication databases. Using the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine review criteria, 10 bottom-up, non-pharmaceutical prevention measures from 104 English-language articles, which published between January 2000 and May 2020, were identified and examined.

Areas of agreement: Evidence-guided behavioural measures against transmission of COVID-19 in global at-risk communities were identified, including regular handwashing, wearing face masks and avoiding crowds and gatherings.

Areas of concern: Strong evidence-based systematic behavioural studies for COVID-19 prevention are lacking.

Growing points: Very limited research publications are available for non-pharmaceutical measures to facilitate pandemic response.

Areas timely for research: Research with strong implementation feasibility that targets resource-poor settings with low baseline health-EDRM capacity is urgently needed.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; behavioural measures; biological hazards; coronavirus; droplet-borne; health-EDRM; non-pharmaceutical; pandemic; primary prevention.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (OCEBM) Levels of Evidence (adapted from www.cebm.net).
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