FluSAFE: Flu SMS Alerts to Freeze Exposure

January 14, 2025 updated by: Melissa Stockwell, Columbia University
Influenza infection results in an estimated 31 million outpatient visits, 55,000 to 974,200 hospitalizations, and 3,000 to 49,000 deaths. Membership in household in which someone else has influenza is the major risk factor for contracting influenza. The household secondary attack rate (SAR) is as high as 19% based on laboratory-confirmed influenza and 30% based on symptoms. Non-pharmaceutical preventive measures, including education, may play a role in decreasing transmission, but are only effective if started within 36 hours of symptom onset in index cases. Yet, most interventions are delayed because they are not initiated until care is sought. The investigators have demonstrated in one primarily Latino, urban community sample, that text messaging can be used to rapidly identify community members with influenza-like illness (ILI) early in an illness. This early identification would enable implementation of an educational intervention in the optimal time frame to reduce influenza transmission. Providing education within a text message is a proven successful strategy to influence behavior. Text messaging itself is scalable, low-cost, and can be used in low literacy populations. However, using text-message based surveillance to trigger a real-time text-message behavioral educational intervention to decrease household influenza transmission has not been assessed.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The study will enroll approximately 400 households with ≥1 child recruited from four contiguous communities in New York City. Households will be randomized, stratified by community 1:1 to receive surveillance-only (no text message education) vs. surveillance plus text message educational intervention. For symptom surveillance, households in both arms will receive text messages 3x/week during each influenza season and report if someone in the household has ILI symptoms. For those in the educational intervention arm, when an ILI/acute respiratory infections (ARI) is reported, a series of educational text messages will be sent with information to decrease household transmission.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

1918

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • New York
      • New York, New York, United States, 10032
        • Columbia University Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • ≥3 persons per household
  • At least one person who is less than 18 years old
  • English or Spanish speaking
  • Household reporter has cell phone with text messaging capabilities
  • Household reporter willing to use text messages to report
  • Reside within study neighborhoods in New York City

Exclusion Criteria

  • Intention to move away from New York City area in <12 months
  • Language other than English or Spanish

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Surveillance + Education arm
Receipt of educational text message about ways to decrease household transmission of influenza and other respiratory infections in addition to surveillance messages
Educational text message about ways to decrease household transmission of influenza and other respiratory infections
No Intervention: Surveillance-only arm
No intervention solely surveillance messages

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of Laboratory-confirmed Influenza Infections
Time Frame: Up to 5 days
One self-swab of the index case and self-swabs of other household members will be analyzed using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to identify household transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.
Up to 5 days

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of Cases of Household Members Meeting Symptomatic Criteria for ILI/ARI
Time Frame: Up to 5 days
The CDC-provided case definition for ARI is presence of at least two of the following: 1) rhinorrhea/nasal congestion; 2) sore throat; 3) cough; 4) fever/feverishness; 5) myalgia. The ILI definition is at least two of the following signs and symptoms: fever, cough, headache, sore throat, or myalgia.
Up to 5 days
Number of Infections of Non-influenza Respiratory Viruses
Time Frame: Up to 5 days
This outcome will measure household transmission of non-influenza respiratory viruses. One self-swab of the index case and self-swabs of other household members will be analyzed using RT-PCR to identify household transmission of non-influenza respiratory viruses
Up to 5 days

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Collaborators

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Melissa Stockwell, MD, MPH, Columbia University

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

October 6, 2017

Primary Completion (Actual)

March 31, 2021

Study Completion (Actual)

May 15, 2021

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 4, 2017

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 4, 2017

First Posted (Actual)

September 6, 2017

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

March 25, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 14, 2025

Last Verified

January 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • AAAR0955
  • 1R01AI127812-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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