RetroSearch Browse

Home - News ( United States | United Kingdom | Italy | Germany ) - Football scores

Showing content from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38019583/ below:

Evaluating the Added Value of Digital Contact Tracing Support Tools for Citizens: Framework Development

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, Netherlands.
² Department of Health Promotion, Care and Public Health Research Institute, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
³ Department of Public Health, Municipal Public Health Service Rotterdam-Rijnmond, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

PMID: 38019583
PMCID: PMC10719815
DOI: 10.2196/44728

Item in Clipboard

Evaluating the Added Value of Digital Contact Tracing Support Tools for Citizens: Framework Development

Ruth Baron et al. JMIR Res Protoc. 2023.

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven, Netherlands.
² Department of Health Promotion, Care and Public Health Research Institute, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
³ Department of Public Health, Municipal Public Health Service Rotterdam-Rijnmond, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

PMID: 38019583
PMCID: PMC10719815
DOI: 10.2196/44728

Item in Clipboard

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that with high infection rates, health services conducting contact tracing (CT) could become overburdened, leading to limited or incomplete CT. Digital CT support (DCTS) tools are designed to mimic traditional CT, by transferring a part of or all the tasks of CT into the hands of citizens. Besides saving time for health services, these tools may help to increase the number of contacts retrieved during the contact identification process, quantity and quality of contact details, and speed of the contact notification process. The added value of DCTS tools for CT is currently unknown.

Objective: To help determine whether DCTS tools could improve the effectiveness of CT, this study aims to develop a framework for the comprehensive assessment of these tools.

Methods: A framework containing evaluation topics, research questions, accompanying study designs, and methods was developed based on consultations with CT experts from municipal public health services and national public health authorities, complemented with scientific literature.

Results: These efforts resulted in a framework aiming to assist with the assessment of the following aspects of CT: speed; comprehensiveness; effectiveness with regard to contact notification; positive case detection; potential workload reduction of public health professionals; demographics related to adoption and reach; and user experiences of public health professionals, index cases, and contacts.

Conclusions: This framework provides guidance for researchers and policy makers in designing their own evaluation studies, the findings of which can help determine how and the extent to which DCTS tools should be implemented as a CT strategy for future infectious disease outbreaks.

Keywords: COVID-19; citizen involvement; contact tracing; digital tools; framework; infectious disease outbreak; mobile phone.

©Ruth Baron, Nora Hamdiui, Yannick B Helms, Rik Crutzen, Hannelore M Götz, Mart L Stein. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (https://www.researchprotocols.org), 29.11.2023.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures
Figure 1

Flowchart showing 4 contact tracing…

Figure 1

Flowchart showing 4 contact tracing (CT) approaches—(A) the traditional CT approach, (B) public…

Figure 1

Flowchart showing 4 contact tracing (CT) approaches—(A) the traditional CT approach, (B) public health professional (PHP)-initiated CT approach making use of a digital CT support (DCTS)-tool, (C) index case-initiated CT approach making use of a DCTS tool, and (D) index case-conducted CT approach making use of a DCTS tool.