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ABSTRACTBeginning January of 2020, COVID-19 cases detected in Arctic countries triggered government policy responses to stop transmission and limit caseloads beneath levels that would overwhelm existing healthcare systems. This review details the various restrictions, health mandates, and transmission mitigation strategies imposed by governments in eight Arctic countries (the United States, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, and Russia) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, through 31 January 2021s31 January 2021. We highlight formal protocols and informal initiatives adopted by local communities in each country, beyond what was mandated by regional or national governments. This review documents travel restrictions, communications, testing strategies, and use of health technology to track and monitor COVID-19 cases. We provide geographical and sociocultural background and draw on local media and communications to contextualise the impact of COVID-19 emergence and prevention measures in Indigenous communities in the Arctic. Countries saw varied case rates associated with local protocols, governance, and population. Still, almost all regions maintained low COVID-19 case rates until November of 2020. This review was produced as part of an international collaboration to identify community-driven, evidence-based promising practices and recommendations to inform pan-Arctic collaboration and decision making in public health during global emergencies.

Abstract Background Nen ŨnkUmbi/EdaHiYedo (“We Are Here Now,” or NE) is an intervention to prevent STIs, HIV, HCV, and teen pregnancy among Assiniboine and Sioux youth of the Fort Peck Reservation in the state of Montana in the USA. A cluster-randomized stepped-wedge design (SWD) trial is used to evaluate NE, where clusters are schools. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether there is evidence of a secular trend associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods The original study design is a cluster-randomized stepped-wedge design (SWD), in which five schools that youth from Fort Peck attend are the clusters to be randomized into the intervention one at a time, with all schools eventually being randomized to the intervention across three steps. N/E is a 5-year study involving 456 15- to 18-year-old youth. For this study, we use a mixed quantitative and qualitative methods approach to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic may have been associated with the study’s primary outcome variables. Data were drawn from the first cluster exposed to the intervention and one control cluster that did not yet receive the intervention during the period in which COVID-19 mitigation efforts were being implemented. A pre-post COVID questionnaire was added to core measures administered, and semistructured qualitative interviews were conducted with youths regarding their perceptions of how the pandemic altered their sexual behaviors. Results One hundred eighteen youth responded to the questionnaire and 31 youth participated in semistructured qualitative interviews. Youth reporting having sex with less people due to COVID-19 reported more sex acts (incident rate ratio (IRR)=3.6, 95% CI 1.6–8.1) in comparison to those who did not report having sex with less people, and youth who reported having sex with the same amount of people due to COVID-19 reported less sex acts (IRR=0.31, 95% CI 0.14–0.7) in comparison to those who did not report having sex with the same amount of people. Youth reporting having sex less times due to COVID-19 experienced a greater number of sex acts in comparison to those who did not report having sex less times (IRR=2.7, 1.2–6.4). Results suggest that more sexually active individuals reported perceiving having sex with less people and less frequent engagement in sex during the pandemic. It is possible that the COVID-19 pandemic period was associated with a truncation in the distribution of sexual activity that would bias an estimate of the intervention’s effect. Conclusion Findings suggest evidence of a secular trend. This trend must be accounted for at trial end, and sensitivity analyses are recommended. Documenting and reporting on these findings encourages transparent reporting during the implementation of a SWD trial during a global pandemic, and informs endline analyses. Trial registration This trial is registered with the Clinical trials registry of the US National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It was registered on October 1, 2018. The study presented in this manuscript is funded by NIH National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), Award # R01MD012761-01, Elizabeth Rink (Principal Investigator). The study’s ClinicalTrials.gov number is NCT03694418.

American Indian (AI) youth in the United States experience disproportionate sexual and reproductive health (SRH) disparities relative to their non-Indigenous, white counterparts, including increased rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), earlier sexual debut, increased rates of teen birth, and reduced access to SRH services. Past research shows that to improve SRH outcomes for AI youth in reservation communities, interventions must address complex factors and multiple levels of community that influence sexual risk behaviors. Here, we describe development of a multi-level, multi-component randomized controlled trial (RCT) to intervene upon SRH outcomes in a Northern Plains American Indian reservation community. Our intervention is rooted in a community based participatory research framework and is evaluated with a stepped wedge design that integrates 5 reservation high schools into a 5-year, cluster-randomized RCT. Ecological Systems Theory was used to design the intervention that includes (1) an individual level component of culturally specific SRH curriculum in school, (2) a parental component of education to improve parent-child communication about SRH and healthy relationships, (3) a community component of cultural mentorship, and (4) a systems-level component to improve delivery of SRH services from reservation healthcare agencies. In this article we present the rationale and details of our research design, instrumentation, data collection protocol, analytical methods, and community participation in the intervention. Our intervention builds upon existing community strengths and integrates traditional Indigenous knowledge and values with current public health knowledge to reduce SRH disparities.