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During the COVID-19 pandemic, digital contact-tracing has been employed in many countries to monitor and manage the spread of the disease. However, to be effective such a system must be adopted by a substantial proportion of the population; therefore, public trust plays a key role. This paper examines the NHS COVID-19 smartphone app, the digital contact-tracing solution in the UK. A series of interviews were carried out prior to the app's release (n = 12) and a large scale survey examining attitudes towards the app (n = 1,001) was carried out after release. Extending previous work reporting high level attitudes towards the app, this paper shows that prevailing negative attitudes prior to release persisted, and affected the subsequent use of the app. They also show significant relationships between trust, app features, and the wider social and societal context. There is lower trust amongst non-users of the app and trust correlates to many other aspects of the app, a lack of trust could hinder adoption and effectiveness of digital contact-tracing. The design of technology requiring wide uptake, e.g., for public health, should embed considerations of the complexities of trust and the context in which the technology will be used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public perceptions of pandemic viral threats and government policies can influence adherence to containment, delay, and mitigation policies such as physical distancing, hygienic practices, use of physical barriers, uptake of testing, contact tracing, and vaccination programs. The UK COVID-19 Public Experiences (COPE) study aims to identify determinants of health behaviour using the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation (COM-B) model using a longitudinal mixed-methods approach. Here, we provide a detailed description of the demographic and self-reported health characteristics of the COPE cohort at baseline assessment, an overview of data collected, and plans for follow-up of the cohort. The COPE baseline survey was completed by 11,113 UK adult residents (18+ years of age). Baseline data collection started on the 13th of March 2020 (10-days before the introduction of the first national COVID-19 lockdown in the UK) and finished on the 13th of April 2020. Participants were recruited via the HealthWise Wales (HWW) research registry and through social media snowballing and advertising (Facebook®, Twitter®, Instagram®). Participants were predominantly female (69%), over 50 years of age (68%), identified as white (98%), and were living with their partner (68%). A large proportion (67%) had a college/university level education, and half reported a pre-existing health condition (50%). Initial follow-up plans for the cohort included in-depth surveys at 3-months and 12-months after the first UK national lockdown to assess short and medium-term effects of the pandemic on health behaviour and subjective health and well-being. Additional consent will be sought from participants at follow-up for data linkage and surveys at 18 and 24-months after the initial UK national lockdown. A large non-random sample was recruited to the COPE cohort during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, which will enable longitudinal analysis of the determinants of health behaviour and changes in subjective health and well-being over the course of the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]