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Concerns and Misconceptions About the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe App: Cross-Sectional Survey Study

BACKGROUND: Timely and effective contact tracing is an essential public health measure for curbing the transmission of COVID-19. App-based contact tracing has the potential to optimize the resources of overstretched public health departments. However, its efficiency is dependent on widespread adopti...

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Autores principales: Thomas, Rae, Michaleff, Zoe A, Greenwood, Hannah, Abukmail, Eman, Glasziou, Paul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7644267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33048826
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/23081
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author Thomas, Rae
Michaleff, Zoe A
Greenwood, Hannah
Abukmail, Eman
Glasziou, Paul
author_facet Thomas, Rae
Michaleff, Zoe A
Greenwood, Hannah
Abukmail, Eman
Glasziou, Paul
author_sort Thomas, Rae
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Timely and effective contact tracing is an essential public health measure for curbing the transmission of COVID-19. App-based contact tracing has the potential to optimize the resources of overstretched public health departments. However, its efficiency is dependent on widespread adoption. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the uptake of the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe app among Australians and examine the reasons why some Australians have not downloaded the app. METHODS: An online national survey, with representative quotas for age and gender, was conducted between May 8 and May 11, 2020. Participants were excluded if they were a health care professional or had been tested for COVID-19. RESULTS: Of the 1802 potential participants contacted, 289 (16.0%) were excluded prior to completing the survey, 13 (0.7%) declined, and 1500 (83.2%) participated in the survey. Of the 1500 survey participants, 37.3% (n=560) had downloaded the COVIDSafe app, 18.7% (n=280) intended to do so, 27.7% (n=416) refused to do so, and 16.3% (n=244) were undecided. Equally proportioned reasons for not downloading the app included privacy (165/660, 25.0%) and technical concerns (159/660, 24.1%). Other reasons included the belief that social distancing was sufficient and the app was unnecessary (111/660, 16.8%), distrust in the government (73/660, 11.1%), and other miscellaneous responses (eg, apathy and following the decisions of others) (73/660, 11.1%). In addition, knowledge about COVIDSafe varied among participants, as some were confused about its purpose and capabilities. CONCLUSIONS: For the COVIDSafe app to be accepted by the public and used correctly, public health messages need to address the concerns of citizens, specifically privacy, data storage, and technical capabilities. Understanding the specific barriers preventing the uptake of contact tracing apps provides the opportunity to design targeted communication strategies aimed at strengthening public health initiatives, such as downloading and correctly using contact tracing apps.
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spelling pubmed-76442672020-11-16 Concerns and Misconceptions About the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe App: Cross-Sectional Survey Study Thomas, Rae Michaleff, Zoe A Greenwood, Hannah Abukmail, Eman Glasziou, Paul JMIR Public Health Surveill Original Paper BACKGROUND: Timely and effective contact tracing is an essential public health measure for curbing the transmission of COVID-19. App-based contact tracing has the potential to optimize the resources of overstretched public health departments. However, its efficiency is dependent on widespread adoption. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the uptake of the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe app among Australians and examine the reasons why some Australians have not downloaded the app. METHODS: An online national survey, with representative quotas for age and gender, was conducted between May 8 and May 11, 2020. Participants were excluded if they were a health care professional or had been tested for COVID-19. RESULTS: Of the 1802 potential participants contacted, 289 (16.0%) were excluded prior to completing the survey, 13 (0.7%) declined, and 1500 (83.2%) participated in the survey. Of the 1500 survey participants, 37.3% (n=560) had downloaded the COVIDSafe app, 18.7% (n=280) intended to do so, 27.7% (n=416) refused to do so, and 16.3% (n=244) were undecided. Equally proportioned reasons for not downloading the app included privacy (165/660, 25.0%) and technical concerns (159/660, 24.1%). Other reasons included the belief that social distancing was sufficient and the app was unnecessary (111/660, 16.8%), distrust in the government (73/660, 11.1%), and other miscellaneous responses (eg, apathy and following the decisions of others) (73/660, 11.1%). In addition, knowledge about COVIDSafe varied among participants, as some were confused about its purpose and capabilities. CONCLUSIONS: For the COVIDSafe app to be accepted by the public and used correctly, public health messages need to address the concerns of citizens, specifically privacy, data storage, and technical capabilities. Understanding the specific barriers preventing the uptake of contact tracing apps provides the opportunity to design targeted communication strategies aimed at strengthening public health initiatives, such as downloading and correctly using contact tracing apps. JMIR Publications 2020-11-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7644267/ /pubmed/33048826 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/23081 Text en ©Rae Thomas, Zoe A Michaleff, Hannah Greenwood, Eman Abukmail, Paul Glasziou. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 04.11.2020. 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 Public Health and Surveillance, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://publichealth.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Thomas, Rae
Michaleff, Zoe A
Greenwood, Hannah
Abukmail, Eman
Glasziou, Paul
Concerns and Misconceptions About the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe App: Cross-Sectional Survey Study
title Concerns and Misconceptions About the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe App: Cross-Sectional Survey Study
title_full Concerns and Misconceptions About the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe App: Cross-Sectional Survey Study
title_fullStr Concerns and Misconceptions About the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe App: Cross-Sectional Survey Study
title_full_unstemmed Concerns and Misconceptions About the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe App: Cross-Sectional Survey Study
title_short Concerns and Misconceptions About the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe App: Cross-Sectional Survey Study
title_sort concerns and misconceptions about the australian government’s covidsafe app: cross-sectional survey study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7644267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33048826
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/23081
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