Flunking COVID-19 Out of Schools: A Systematic Review of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions to Minimize Novel Coronavirus-2 in Educational Settings

ABSTRACT

A systematic analysis of almost 500 studies uncovers the breadth of non-pharmaceutical (non-vaccine) interventions that have been previously implemented or tested in an educational setting to reduce virus transmissions. This systematic review takes a sociotechnical systems approach and categorizes the interventions into personal, environmental, organizational, and communication interventions. Thus, this analysis recognizes the interactions among various factors that make up an educational institution and emphasizes the significance of adopting multiple interventions. Complementing the various interventions, a list of best practices for each intervention has been developed in detail for COVID-19 crisis management in an educational setting with the current knowledge of the virus to date.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• non-pharmaceutical interventions
• education administration
• systematic review
• viral risk mitigation

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Mineta Transportation Institute and the Office of the Provost at San José State University. The authors wish to acknowledge Dr Sheryl Ehrman, Dr Hilary Nixon, and Dr Vincent J. Del Casino Jr. for their support of this work. The authors have no competing or conflicting interests.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Office of the Provost at San José State University; Mintea Transportation Institute.