New “Gold Standard” Study Shows Masks Work to Stop Spread of COVID-19
There’s plenty of debate about the simple issue of whether wearing face masks helps prevent the spread of COVID-19. As research continues to confirm, the answer is simple: they do.
A simple practice delivers big results
A large-scale Stanford University School of Medicine/Yale University study, conducted through a rigorous randomized trial and published on September 1, 2021, showed that people in community settings who wore surgical face masks that properly covered both mouth and nose and who were exposed to targeted information about COVID and masking succeeded in significantly lowering their risk of contracting and spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This research further bolsters the hundreds of previous laboratory and observational studies that produced similar results.
Notably, the study found that cloth masks were measurably less effective than surgical masks, an outcome the researchers chiefly attributed to the latter’s higher filtration capabilities.
How it worked
The study was the largest of its kind to date. The researchers examined outcomes in 600 Bangladeshi villages after they enrolled about 350,000 adults into two groups. One group was given a range of promotional communications on the importance of masking, and a control group was not targeted to receive this information. The researchers followed up by, among other things, testing participants who showed COVID symptoms.
Community outreach boosts masking
In addition to its findings on mask efficacy, the study demonstrated that specific public health strategies were able to boost the practice of masking by people living in these lower-income rural communities—all at a relatively low cost.
The goal of the study was to normalize mask-wearing within communities. Its strategies included door-to-door mask distribution, printed messages available in public locations, text messages, monetary rewards, community role models encouraging mask-wearing, and direct one-on-one approaches offering mask guidance if someone was either not wearing one or wearing it incorrectly.
This approach resulted in a tripling of mask-wearing in the targeted communities.
As one of the Stanford scientists on the research team told media upon publication of the study, evidence this strong represents “the gold standard” of research into public health outreach measures on preventing the spread of COVID.
Taking the long view
Based on those findings, officials are looking to use the same plan to promote masking among millions of people in the developing world who may not have access to a vaccine against COVID-19. This makes the research study extremely valuable, as the pandemic continues to run unabated in many of the world’s most resource-poor and vulnerable regions.
The researchers also point out that although large cities are very different from rural Bangladesh, this study is just as relevant to keeping all people safe and healthy. People living in urbanized areas in the developed world tend to work in closed-in office buildings rather than outdoors. They also tend to physically cluster more than would be natural for people in the Bangladesh countryside. Given these lifestyle issues, residents of San Francisco, New York, and comparable areas should feel even more confident that wearing a mask is the most responsible choice they can make.