SynthesisJMIR mHealth and uHealth2021
State of the Art in Adoption of Contact Tracing Apps and Recommendations Regarding Privacy Protection and Public Health: Systematic Review.
Synthesis in JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- User Compliance With the Health Emergency and Disaster Management System: Systematic Literature Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Pooled it
- Algorithms to anonymize structured medical and healthcare data: A systematic review.Frontiers in bioinformatics · 2022Pooled it
- Assessing the User Experience of the EU Mobile App for Cancer Prevention: Mixed Methods Study.JMIR formative research · 2025Article
- Survey of Citizens' Preferences for Combined Contact Tracing App Features During a Pandemic: Conjoint Analysis.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2024Article
- Contextual Acceptance of COVID-19 Mitigation Mobile Apps in the United States: Mixed Methods Survey Study on Postpandemic Data Privacy.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Perceptions of Wearable Health Tools Post the COVID-19 Emergency in Low-Income Latin Communities: Qualitative Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2024Article
- Investigating Citizens' Acceptance of Contact Tracing Apps: Quantitative Study of the Role of Trust and Privacy.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2024Article
- Mobile Apps for COVID-19: A Systematic Review of Reviews.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Personal Information Protection and Privacy Policy Compliance of Health Code Apps in China: Scale Development and Content Analysis.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2023Review
- Cultural Implications Regarding Privacy in Digital Contact Tracing Algorithms: Method Development and Empirical Ethics Analysis of a German and a Japanese Approach to Contact Tracing.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Article
- Factors associated with acceptance of a digital contact tracing application for COVID-19 in the Japanese working-age population.Nagoya journal of medical science · 2023Article
- Trading-off privacy and utility: the Washington State experience assessing the performance of a public health digital exposure notification system for coronavirus disease 2019.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2022Article
- Why Has Digital Contact Tracing Worked Differently in Different Countries? Comment on Cao et al. The Impact of Digital Contact Tracing Apps Overuse on Prevention of COVID-19: A Normative Activation Model Perspective.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Reply to Giansanti, D. Why Has Digital Contact Tracing Worked Differently in Different Countries? Comment on "Cao et al. The Impact of Digital Contact Tracing Apps Overuse on Prevention of COVID-19: A Normative Activation Model Perspective.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Separating Features From Functionality in Vaccination Apps: Computational Analysis.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- The Recent Advances of Mobile Healthcare in Cardiology Practice.Acta informatica medica : AIM : journal of the Society for Medical Informatics of Bosnia & Herzegovina : casopis Drustva za medicinsku informatiku BiH · 2022Review
- Analyzing the impact of a real-life outbreak simulator on pandemic mitigation: An epidemiological modeling study.Patterns (New York, N.Y.) · 2022Article
- Delineating privacy aspects of COVID tracing applications embedded with proximity measurement technologies & digital technologies.Technology in society · 2022Article
- Analytical mapping of information and communication technology in emerging infectious diseases using CiteSpace.Telematics and informatics · 2022Review
- The Digital Health: From the Experience of the COVID-19 Pandemic Onwards.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing apps have received a lot of public attention. The ongoing debate highlights the challenges of the adoption of data-driven innovation. We reflect on how to ensure an appropriate level of protection of individual data and how to maximize public health benefits that can be derived from the collected data.
objectiveThe aim of the study was to analyze available COVID-19 contact tracing apps and verify to what extent public health interests and data privacy standards can be fulfilled simultaneously in the process of the adoption of digital health technologies.
methodsA systematic review of PubMed and MEDLINE databases, as well as grey literature, was performed to identify available contact tracing apps. Two checklists were developed to evaluate (1) the apps' compliance with data privacy standards and (2) their fulfillment of public health interests. Based on both checklists, a scorecard with a selected set of minimum requirements was created with the goal of estimating whether the balance between the objective of data privacy and public health interests can be achieved in order to ensure the broad adoption of digital technologies.
resultsOverall, 21 contact tracing apps were reviewed. In total, 11 criteria were defined to assess the usefulness of each digital technology for public health interests. The most frequently installed features related to contact alerting and governmental accountability. The least frequently installed feature was the availability of a system of medical or organizational support. Only 1 app out of 21 (5%) provided a threshold for the population coverage needed for the digital solution to be effective. In total, 12 criteria were used to assess the compliance of contact tracing apps with data privacy regulations. Explicit user consent, voluntary use, and anonymization techniques were among the most frequently fulfilled criteria. The least often implemented criteria were provisions of information about personal data breaches and data gathered from children. The balance between standards of data protection and public health benefits was achieved best by the COVIDSafe app and worst by the Alipay Health Code app.
conclusionsContact tracing apps with high levels of compliance with standards of data privacy tend to fulfill public health interests to a limited extent. Simultaneously, digital technologies with a lower level of data privacy protection allow for the collection of more data. Overall, this review shows that a consistent number of apps appear to comply with standards of data privacy, while their usefulness from a public health perspective can still be maximized.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.