School-Level Data on COVID-19 Cases, Quarantines, and Student Absenteeism During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Understanding Missingness.

Abstract

This study aims to understand availability of school-based infectious disease surveillance data (e.g., COVID-19 cases, student absences) based on experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic using a national sample of public K-12 schools (n = 1,602). Based on surveys administered to school administrators throughout the 2021-2022 school year, we found high levels of missingness data for school-level COVID-19 cases, quarantines, and student absenteeism, increasing missingness over time, and variations in missingness by school characteristics (e.g., school size) and protocols (e.g., having a school-based system to report at-home COVID-19 tests). For the same sample of schools, using data requests to health departments, we found similarly high levels of missingness of school-level COVID-19 case data and varying approaches in data collection. Developing nationally standardized case definitions-and systems to surveil or collect and monitor school-based infectious disease outcomes early in a public health emergency-may be helpful in producing actionable data.