Routes of infection, routes to safety: Creative mapping of human-viral behaviours on the bus to understand infection prevention practices
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Southampton
Department Name: Sch of Geography & Environmental Sci
Abstract
There is an absence of qualitative, interdisciplinary research on the personal application of infection prevention (IP) measures, like hand-washing and mask-wearing, and its effectiveness beyond the healthcare setting. In this crisis, IP measures are critical to building confidence to resume leisure and economic activity out of the home. The project advances previous work by this team that identified a need for novel IP research which integrates behavioural, microbiological and aesthetic approaches to creatively demonstrate the interactions of human movement with microbial/viral transmission.
The case study is the public transport bus and its diverse community of users, including BAME and other higher-risk groups. The research will: i) investigate the structural challenges in consistent application of IP in public (and private) spaces; ii) provide microbiological and sociological evidence to inform and improve effective cleaning practices for bus operators and safe travel practices for bus users; iii) generate wider public knowledge and understanding of infection risk/prevention and their geographies in shared indoor spaces.
This project will build confidence by addressing unknowns about the potential viral threat of boarding the bus. The team will work quickly to undertake and integrate findings from an ethnographic research and a microbiome study to assess the effectiveness of bus cleaning routines and passenger PPE. A fluorescents mapping simulation using ultraviolet powders and sprays will mimic and demonstrate visually the mobility of 'mock' SARS-CoV-2 through contact and aerosols if IP measures are not implemented. Outputs include the creation of novel viral aesthetic materials to communicate the effectiveness of IP.
The case study is the public transport bus and its diverse community of users, including BAME and other higher-risk groups. The research will: i) investigate the structural challenges in consistent application of IP in public (and private) spaces; ii) provide microbiological and sociological evidence to inform and improve effective cleaning practices for bus operators and safe travel practices for bus users; iii) generate wider public knowledge and understanding of infection risk/prevention and their geographies in shared indoor spaces.
This project will build confidence by addressing unknowns about the potential viral threat of boarding the bus. The team will work quickly to undertake and integrate findings from an ethnographic research and a microbiome study to assess the effectiveness of bus cleaning routines and passenger PPE. A fluorescents mapping simulation using ultraviolet powders and sprays will mimic and demonstrate visually the mobility of 'mock' SARS-CoV-2 through contact and aerosols if IP measures are not implemented. Outputs include the creation of novel viral aesthetic materials to communicate the effectiveness of IP.
| Title | Microbial Neighbouring |
| Description | Scribing by Sam Church during a workshop on Microbial Neighbouring with Global-NAMRIP members. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | It won Third Prize in the National Biofilm Innovation Centre Art Competition in 2022. |
| URL | https://www.biofilms.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BA31.pdf |
| Title | You're Never Alone on the Bus |
| Description | The Routes to Safety team produced a series of short films in collaboration with film maker Joseph Turp and in dialogue with project partners including bus operators, community groups and user organisations. The films have developed out of ethnography and interviews undertaken earlier in 2021, and seek to illustrate some of the things that people said make them feel more or less safe on the bus. The films will soon be made available to bus operators, community groups and others, for wider dissemination to engage customers and other publics interested in making spaces like public transport safer and more accessible. This has relevance not only in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, but in reducing the spread of seasonal colds, flus and other infections. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | The films were seen by several thousand users on social media. We also had a targeted campaign through which we sent the films to a number of regional and national bus operators, to begin conversations about how they might approach communications around infection prevention and passenger experience differently. |
| URL | https://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/routestosafety/2021/11/05/films/ |
| Description | From our 60 hours of ethnography between February and October 2021, we observed the 'distortion' of the bus environment: fewer passengers, restricted seating, and adaptation to users' behaviours. Although unsettling at first, these had broadly positive implications for public health confidence. Ethnography also showed that the employment of mask wearing, social distancing and window opening was inconsistent across bus operators and regions, as was signage about it. In our 37 interviews (of 10 bus drivers, 22 bus users and 5 bus cleaners) between April and August 2022, we discovered recurrent themes: anxiety; coping with the new microbial landscape; perceptions of personal risk; altered sociality on the bus; the perceived value of social distancing and mask wearing. We found that often, people's infection prevention practices initially followed government guidance, but as reliance on this waned, they were based on personal knowledges formed variously from news, social media, past experience and word of mouth. Our research showed that public scientific understanding about the virus was inconsistent but that other imagination-led forms of communication such as stories and emotions can affect behaviour change. The microbiome study showed the deep cleaning of the bus each night worked to keep high-touch surfaces clean. It also showed that the microbiome inside the bus resembled an outside, rather than inside environment. This finding that the bus is like the outside with microbial life brought in from the outside on clothing, luggage, shoes and through the movement of air into the bus via opening doors and windows is significant for tackling concerns about this space as an indoor space with poor ventilation. |
| Exploitation Route | We recommend that government: (1) Actively work to establish new cultures of co-responsibility and care for public health, among bus users, drivers and cleaners. (2) Develop ways to communicate about dynamic microbial landscapes, rather than just generic risk. (3) Consider accessibility issues - around disability and health, as well as cultural diversity - in building public health confidence and messaging on the bus. (4) Recognise that people became bored with press conferences and government slogans, so seek ways to engage audiences in more creative ways to usher in confidence with a 'new normal'. We recommend that bus operators and other stakeholders responsible for public spaces: (5) Take into account scientific research about aerosol transmission and ventilation, in relation to COVID-19 and other respiratory conditions, in vehicle and timetable design. (6) Acknowledge and respond to seasonal public health challenges by employing ventilation as a form of infection prevention throughout the year. (7) Update and expand signage about mask wearing, social distancing and ventilation, taking into account different linguistic and cultural barriers. (8) Develop more sophisticated ways of communicating about aerosols. (9) Acknowledge that different bus users experience risk and confidence in different ways, and identify triggers for using more bespoke messaging at specific times for specific audiences. |
| Sectors | Transport |
| URL | https://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/routestosafety/ |
| Description | The public information films 'You're never alone on the bus' received significant interest from the Confederation of Passenger Transport, Bus Users and Transport Focus in the Autumn of 2021. The films were circulated through internal channels to the major bus operators as we encouraged dissemination of the films to support infection prevention measures of bus passengers through the Winter. However the change in Government policy away from legal requirements to wear a mask on public transport (albeit for the short weeks in Dec 2021) and the ongoing feeling that public transport was being unduly targeted by Government as a riskier space than say the pub, the shop, the cafe, led to a reluctance to disseminate a set of films to their passengers as this could suggest there was a problem on public transport, whilst other public spaces had no bespoke public health information films. This was made clear to us at the workshops with the bus industry in December 2021 and subsequent interviews with bus operators in Jan 2022. In this way the research findings and outputs are having an impact in how the bus industry position and define themselves in relation to the optional use of public health messaging. They have chosen to do nothing more than to try and ensure bus windows are kept open, with no internal signage nor communication through other promotional materials. The operators have chosen to follow the Government Covid-information position that emerged through the Autumn of 2021 and into 20202 that everything is getting back to normal. Along these lines, the message to the public is that normal bus usage should be encouraged to resume, which is critical for the industry at a time when they are under grave financial and operational pressures as additional Government financial support available during the Pandemic, is withdrawn, and yet passenger numbers remain depressed. This position is in contrast to some corporate actors e.g. some supermarket brands, who have continued to request mask-wearing compliance when in-store. Since autumn 2021 the project team have had a number of meetings with Transport Focus, sharing and discussing our findings with the body that carries out weekly surveys on attitudes to public transport use on behalf of the Department for Transport. Throughout the project we have had a strong partnership with Bus Users UK. Bus Users have actively promoted the films and findings to the bus operators. Our participatory research approach with the British Somali community has supported this community to communicate more widely about their experience of the Pandemic and to feel their experiences have been listened to. Other research findings are still too early to see any clear impact. The microbiological analysis has not yet been published. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2021 |
| Sector | Transport |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal |
| Description | Contributions to Pandemic & Beyond: Communication and messaging during COVD-19 |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Description | Creative Public Health Videos Informing National Transport Operators |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
| Description | Social Scientific and Microbiome Data informing Industry and Charity |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
| Description | NBIC Public Engagement and Outreach Funding: On the Buses with the Micro-Passengers |
| Amount | £2,945 (GBP) |
| Organisation | National Biofilms Innovation Centre |
| Sector | Private |
| Start | 01/2022 |
| End | 07/2022 |
| Description | Public Engagement with Research - Development Funding Call: Micro-Pet Community Bus |
| Amount | £3,982 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Southampton |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2022 |
| End | 07/2022 |
| Title | Microbiological Informed Ethnography |
| Description | The research project has been developing interdisciplinary approaches to ethnographic research. Ethnography has been informed by microbiological swabbing techniques. This represents a substantial shift in thinking, whereby microbiological analysis is informing studies of human behaviour and practices within everyday public environments where unacquainted others share space. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Developing interdisciplinary methodological approaches is vital for strengthening interdisciplinary thinking and for shaping the types of questions/approaches we adopt in the process o data collection. |
| Description | 'Creative mapping of human-viral behaviours on the bus to understand infection prevention practices' talk at Pandemic Perspectives Online Series |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Members of the team gave a joint presentation on initial project findings and context, which led to some rich discussion with attendees. Attendees reported insights that would inform their work in relation to the pandemic and other subjects, and the methodologies they were using. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Communicating through COVID-19: Public Health, Public Transport and Infection Prevention |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Invited stakeholders attended a 90 minute workshop in which all members of the team presented interim findings from the project. This was followed by questions and in-depth discussion afterwards, about how the findings might be relevant to local and national government, public transport industry and to third sector and campaigning groups. Participants reported new insights about infection prevention communication which they were going to take back to their teams, and an interest in the films and digital assets that the project team had produced. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/routestosafety/2021/12/07/workshop-9th-dec-communicating-throu... |
| Description | Community and COVID-19: Local resident stakeholder workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In-person 90 minute workshop held with local residents and members of the Bristol Somali Community. Some of the attendees had participated in the research, others were simply interested in the findings and were invited by our community organisation partner. We briefly shared the findings of the research, which sparked a lot of discussion and reflection about the community's experience of the pandemic. Attendees reported that the workshop was a valuable opportunity to reflect, and it also gave the researchers really valuable insights and perspective on working with community members in future. Researchers and community partners reached a new understanding about experiences of living through the pandemic, and of poverty and racism, and discussed ways of developing future activity to address this. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Project website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Project website set up to profile project, and to disseminate findings and make available project outputs (report, public engagement films, recordings, etc.) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| URL | https://generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk/routestosafety/2021/12/07/workshop-9th-dec-communicating-throu... |
| Description | Regional Stakeholder Workshop: COVID-19, Communities and Public Transport in Bristol and Southampton |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Invited stakeholders attended a 90 minute workshop in which all members of the team presented interim findings from the project. This was followed by questions and in-depth discussion afterwards, about how the findings might be relevant to local government and public transport industry. Attendees reported learning new insights into infection prevention and pandemic management, and connecting with professionals in other organisations / sectors with whom they can exchange knowledge and experience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Routes of infection, routes to safety: Creative mapping of human-viral behaviours on the bus to understand infection prevention practices for Global Network of Antimicrobial Resistance Infection Prevention Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The paper reported on early social scientific findings from the research. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Routes of infection, routes to safety: Creative mapping of human-viral behaviours on the bus to understand infection prevention practices for the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences Seminar Series |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The presented covered key social scientific findings, introduced early microbiome results and showcased the creative films. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.southampton.ac.uk/geography/news/seminars/2021/11/25-unquenchable-thirst-for-sand.page? |