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Acceptability of App-Based Contact Tracing for COVID-19: Cross-Country Survey Study

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest public health crisis of the last 100 years. Countries have responded with various levels of lockdown to save lives and stop health systems from being overwhelmed. At the same time, lockdowns entail large socioeconomic costs. One exit strategy under c...

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Autores principales: Altmann, Samuel, Milsom, Luke, Zillessen, Hannah, Blasone, Raffaele, Gerdon, Frederic, Bach, Ruben, Kreuter, Frauke, Nosenzo, Daniele, Toussaert, Séverine, Abeler, Johannes
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7458659/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32759102
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/19857
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author Altmann, Samuel
Milsom, Luke
Zillessen, Hannah
Blasone, Raffaele
Gerdon, Frederic
Bach, Ruben
Kreuter, Frauke
Nosenzo, Daniele
Toussaert, Séverine
Abeler, Johannes
author_facet Altmann, Samuel
Milsom, Luke
Zillessen, Hannah
Blasone, Raffaele
Gerdon, Frederic
Bach, Ruben
Kreuter, Frauke
Nosenzo, Daniele
Toussaert, Séverine
Abeler, Johannes
author_sort Altmann, Samuel
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest public health crisis of the last 100 years. Countries have responded with various levels of lockdown to save lives and stop health systems from being overwhelmed. At the same time, lockdowns entail large socioeconomic costs. One exit strategy under consideration is a mobile phone app that traces the close contacts of those infected with COVID-19. Recent research has demonstrated the theoretical effectiveness of this solution in different disease settings. However, concerns have been raised about such apps because of the potential privacy implications. This could limit the acceptability of app-based contact tracing in the general population. As the effectiveness of this approach increases strongly with app uptake, it is crucial to understand public support for this intervention. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to investigate the user acceptability of a contact-tracing app in five countries hit by the pandemic. METHODS: We conducted a largescale, multicountry study (N=5995) to measure public support for the digital contact tracing of COVID-19 infections. We ran anonymous online surveys in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We measured intentions to use a contact-tracing app across different installation regimes (voluntary installation vs automatic installation by mobile phone providers) and studied how these intentions vary across individuals and countries. RESULTS: We found strong support for the app under both regimes, in all countries, across all subgroups of the population, and irrespective of regional-level COVID-19 mortality rates. We investigated the main factors that may hinder or facilitate uptake and found that concerns about cybersecurity and privacy, together with a lack of trust in the government, are the main barriers to adoption. CONCLUSIONS: Epidemiological evidence shows that app-based contact tracing can suppress the spread of COVID-19 if a high enough proportion of the population uses the app and that it can still reduce the number of infections if uptake is moderate. Our findings show that the willingness to install the app is very high. The available evidence suggests that app-based contact tracing may be a viable approach to control the diffusion of COVID-19.
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spelling pubmed-74586592020-09-03 Acceptability of App-Based Contact Tracing for COVID-19: Cross-Country Survey Study Altmann, Samuel Milsom, Luke Zillessen, Hannah Blasone, Raffaele Gerdon, Frederic Bach, Ruben Kreuter, Frauke Nosenzo, Daniele Toussaert, Séverine Abeler, Johannes JMIR Mhealth Uhealth Original Paper BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest public health crisis of the last 100 years. Countries have responded with various levels of lockdown to save lives and stop health systems from being overwhelmed. At the same time, lockdowns entail large socioeconomic costs. One exit strategy under consideration is a mobile phone app that traces the close contacts of those infected with COVID-19. Recent research has demonstrated the theoretical effectiveness of this solution in different disease settings. However, concerns have been raised about such apps because of the potential privacy implications. This could limit the acceptability of app-based contact tracing in the general population. As the effectiveness of this approach increases strongly with app uptake, it is crucial to understand public support for this intervention. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to investigate the user acceptability of a contact-tracing app in five countries hit by the pandemic. METHODS: We conducted a largescale, multicountry study (N=5995) to measure public support for the digital contact tracing of COVID-19 infections. We ran anonymous online surveys in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We measured intentions to use a contact-tracing app across different installation regimes (voluntary installation vs automatic installation by mobile phone providers) and studied how these intentions vary across individuals and countries. RESULTS: We found strong support for the app under both regimes, in all countries, across all subgroups of the population, and irrespective of regional-level COVID-19 mortality rates. We investigated the main factors that may hinder or facilitate uptake and found that concerns about cybersecurity and privacy, together with a lack of trust in the government, are the main barriers to adoption. CONCLUSIONS: Epidemiological evidence shows that app-based contact tracing can suppress the spread of COVID-19 if a high enough proportion of the population uses the app and that it can still reduce the number of infections if uptake is moderate. Our findings show that the willingness to install the app is very high. The available evidence suggests that app-based contact tracing may be a viable approach to control the diffusion of COVID-19. JMIR Publications 2020-08-28 /pmc/articles/PMC7458659/ /pubmed/32759102 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/19857 Text en ©Samuel Altmann, Luke Milsom, Hannah Zillessen, Raffaele Blasone, Frederic Gerdon, Ruben Bach, Frauke Kreuter, Daniele Nosenzo, Séverine Toussaert, Johannes Abeler. Originally published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 28.08.2020. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://mhealth.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Altmann, Samuel
Milsom, Luke
Zillessen, Hannah
Blasone, Raffaele
Gerdon, Frederic
Bach, Ruben
Kreuter, Frauke
Nosenzo, Daniele
Toussaert, Séverine
Abeler, Johannes
Acceptability of App-Based Contact Tracing for COVID-19: Cross-Country Survey Study
title Acceptability of App-Based Contact Tracing for COVID-19: Cross-Country Survey Study
title_full Acceptability of App-Based Contact Tracing for COVID-19: Cross-Country Survey Study
title_fullStr Acceptability of App-Based Contact Tracing for COVID-19: Cross-Country Survey Study
title_full_unstemmed Acceptability of App-Based Contact Tracing for COVID-19: Cross-Country Survey Study
title_short Acceptability of App-Based Contact Tracing for COVID-19: Cross-Country Survey Study
title_sort acceptability of app-based contact tracing for covid-19: cross-country survey study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7458659/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32759102
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/19857
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