Understanding how COVID-19 spreads is a top priority for medical and public health professionals around the globe. SAVI has played a key role in a local study focused on the role of asymptomatic infections.

The study—known as TACTIC (Tracking Asymptomatic COVID-19 Through Indianapolis Communities)—tested about 500 volunteer participants. Roughly, a fourth were children, which makes TACTIC the first community study in the U.S. to analyze COVID-19 infection in both children and adults.

“It really started with us, as pediatricians, wanting to understand how COVID-19 was being spread through the community—especially asymptomatic infections,” says Dr. James Wood, assistant research professor of pediatrics at the IU School of Medicine. The other lead researcher, Chandy John, is Ryan White Professor of Pediatrics at the School. Both doctors care for patients at Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis.

To carry out the study, the researchers needed samples of the population that mirrored, as closely as possible, the demographic makeup of several selected “ZIP code clusters.” To do that, they needed to know the demographics of those ZIP codes. Read more.