Pilot study of participant-collected nasal swabs for acute respiratory infections in a low-income, urban population.

Objective: To assess the feasibility and validity of unsupervised participant-collected nasal swabs to detect respiratory pathogens in a low-income, urban minority population.

Methods: This project was conducted as part of an ongoing community-based surveillance study in New York City to identify viral etiologies of acute respiratory infection. In January 2014, following sample collection by trained research assistants, participants with acute respiratory infection from 30 households subsequently collected and returned a self-collected/parent-collected nasal swab via mail.