Completed projects

Public attitudes towards, and use of, COVID-19 contact tracing apps

  • Health care

What is the context?

Traditionally, contact tracing has involved health authorities manually identifying individuals who have possibly been exposed to a source of infection and alerting them to the risk, so appropriate action to control the spread of infection (such as testing and quarantine) can be taken. Such activities, when implemented effectively and at the right time, reduces infections in the population.

At the initial stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Digital proximity (more commonly referred to as ‘contact’) tracing applications (‘apps’) were proposed as an adjunct to manual contact tracing efforts. Many health authorities around the world (including in England and Wales) developed apps as part of their public health response, but it was not clear to what extent populations would accept such interventions, which could be perceived as intrusive.

  • The aim of this research was to understand the attitudes shaping the views of adults in England and Wales on the use of contact tracing apps in the context of a pandemic, the factors influencing widescale uptake of these apps, and how uptake and use change over the course of the pandemic and as lockdown measures are relaxed, and reintroduced.

    The research aimed to answer the following research questions:

    • What proportion of adults in England and Wales are and are not willing to contribute data to a contact tracing app in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic? What are their characteristics? How do these characteristics relate to the risk factors, and perceived risk for contracting SARS-CoV-2?
    • To what extent do members of the public understand how the chosen technology(ies) for mobile phone contact tracing in the UK operate? For example, whether the app collects personal information that is linked to health records, whether the app tracks the movement of users.
    • What concerns do members of the public have regarding the use of these apps? For example, loss of employment and income as a result of being instructed to self-isolate, privacy concerns, unauthorised use of information by Government authorities or by third parties, likely effectiveness of the app in reducing infection rates, practical concerns about the app draining phones’ batteries.
    • What would allay the concerns stated by members of the public and increase their likelihood of using the app? For example, only collecting anonymised data, not linking the data to any other governmental database, the ability to withdraw consent at any point with all data collected up to that point erased, evidence from other countries that its use has resulted in fewer infections or mitigation of impact on economy, use of the app being linked to relaxation of lockdown measures.
    • What have been the main sources of information about the app for members of the public? What is/are their preferred/ trusted sources of information?
    • How does the use of the app change over the course of the pandemic? What factors lead users to stop using it or start using it at a later date?
  • The first phase of this research (consisting of a five-wave panel survey conducted between October 2020 and March 2021) was funded from PIRU’s existing core budget as part of its responsive research commitment. The surveys utilised the survey company YouGov’s online panel and included a sample of over 2,000 smartphone-owning adults aged 18-79 in England and Wales, plus an ethnic minority boost sample of 700 respondents.

    In recognition of the importance of our research, namely its contribution to informing policy decisions regarding the NHS COVID-19 contact tracing app, we were invited by the policy customers (DHSC/ PHE/ NHSX/ NHS Test & Trace) to apply for funding to extend the survey by three waves, conducted between July and December 2021.

    We provided a series of short reports of key results to our policy clients approximately one week after receiving the dataset from each wave of the survey from YouGov, and conducted supplementary analysis when requested. We also agreed the content of questionnaires and reports with policy customers in advance. This pattern provided an opportunity for them to review the results and consider new questions for the next wave of the survey.

  • Around half of respondents had the app installed at each time point. The main reason for installing it at launch was ‘civic, public or social responsibility’. However, amongst those who installed the app later, it was more for the practical reason of needing it to scan QR codes to access venues. We found some differences in uptake. For example, individuals who considered themselves vulnerable to COVID-19 or were concerned about the risk COVID-19 posed being more likely to install it. Factors associated with installing the app over time included becoming more concerned about the risk COVID-19 poses to the country, or perceiving that the crisis in their local area had worsened.

Outputs