Does Mode of Digital Contact Tracing Affect User Willingness to Share Information? A Quantitative Study

TL;DR

This study examines how different digital contact tracing methods and data types influence user willingness to share information, highlighting the potential of smartphone-based approaches and mixed data sources to improve adoption.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis of how contact tracing modes and data types impact user compliance, offering insights for designing more acceptable digital health interventions.

Findings

Smartphone-based contact tracing shows high user acceptance.

Combining public health officials and medical records increases willingness.

Demographic factors influence user compliance with data sharing.

Abstract

Digital contact tracing can limit the spread of infectious diseases. Nevertheless, there remain barriers to attaining sufficient adoption. In this study, we investigate how willingness to participate in contact tracing is affected by two critical factors: the modes of data collection and the type of data collected. We conducted a scenario-based survey study among 220 respondents in the United States (U.S.) to understand their perceptions about contact tracing associated with automated and manual contact tracing methods. The findings indicate a promising use of smartphones and a combination of public health officials and medical health records as information sources. Through a quantitative analysis, we describe how different modalities and individual demographic factors may affect user compliance in providing four key pieces of information to contact tracing.