Use of Digital COVID-19 Exposure Notifications at a Large Gathering: Survey Analysis of Public Health Conference Attendees.

Background: WA Notify was Washington State's smartphone-based COVID-19 digital exposure notification (EN) tool, which was used to help limit the spread of COVID-19 between November 30, 2020, and May 11, 2023. Following the 2022 Washington State Public Health Association Annual Conference, attendees who had WA Notify activated began receiving ENs alerting them to a possible COVID-19 exposure during the conference. A survey was emailed to all conference attendees to measure WA Notify adoption, mechanisms through which attendees received ENs, and self-reported engagement in protective behaviors postexposure.
Objective: This study aimed to learn more about the experiences of WA Notify adopters and nonadopters who may have been exposed to COVID-19 at a large group gathering.
Methods: A web-based survey administered through REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture; Vanderbilt University) was sent to all attendees of the Washington State Public Health Association conference. Self-reported demographic information and characteristics of respondents were summarized. Regression models were used to estimate relative risks to compare WA Notify adoption and testing behaviors between groups.
Results: Of the 464 total registered attendees who were sent the survey, 205 (44%) responses were received; 201 eligible attendees were included in this analysis. Of those, 149 (74%) respondents reported having WA Notify activated on their phones at the time of the conference. Among respondents with WA Notify activated, 54% (n=77) reported learning of their potential exposure from a WA Notify EN. Respondents who reported that they did not have WA Notify activated and learned of their potential exposure via the event-wide email from conference organizers were 39% less likely to test for COVID-19 compared to respondents with WA Notify activated who learned of their potential exposure from the email (relative risk 0.61, 95% CI 0.40-0.93; P=.02), and this gap was even larger when compared to respondents who learned of their exposure from a WA Notify EN. The most commonly cited reason for not having WA Notify activated was privacy concerns (n=17, 35%), followed by not wanting to receive ENs (n=6, 12%) and being unaware of WA Notify (n=5, 10%).
Conclusions: Digital EN systems are an important tool to directly and anonymously notify close contacts of potential exposures and provide guidance on the next steps in a timely manner. Given the privacy concerns, there is still a need for increasing transparency surrounding EN technology to increase uptake by the public if this technology were to be used in the future to slow the spread of communicable diseases.
(©Caitlin M Drover, Adam S Elder, Brandon L Guthrie, Debra Revere, Nicole L Briggs, Laura M West, Amanda Higgins, William B Lober, Bryant T Karras, Janet G Baseman. Originally published in JMIR Formative Research (https://formative.jmir.org), 18.03.2024.)