Stimulating Adoption of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps
To decrease the spreading of the COVID-19 virus, applications have been developed that trace contacts with COVID-19 infected individuals and warn those who are at risk of having contracted the virus. The effectiveness of the app highly depends on its uptake and continued use by the population.
Therefore, this research project focusses on determinants of app use intention, continued use and use discontinuation. The characteristics of individuals who are inclined (or not) to use the app and how this relates to their COVID-19 preventive behaviors, is investigated.
How integrating several functionalities influences app-uptake and how the public can be informed about the app features, privacy protection measures and feedback on its (epidemiological) impact, is assessed.
New study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research on reasons of nonuse, use discontinuation etc.
More information?
Contact prof. dr. Michel Walrave, prof. dr. Koen Ponnet, Cato Waeterloos and Eline Baert.
Open access publications of the research conducted early 2020:
Adoption of a contact tracing app for containing COVID-19 : a health belief model approach.
Walrave Michel Waeterloos Cato Ponnet Koen
JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (2020)
Ready or Not for Contact Tracing? Investigating the Adoption Intention of COVID-19 Contact-Tracing Technology Using an Extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology Model.
Walrave Michel Waeterloos Cato Ponnet Koen
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking (2021)
Open access publications of the research conducted in late 2020 and in 2021:
COVID-19 digital contact tracing: a cross-sectional survey on drivers of nonuse, use discontinuation and acceptance of app options.
Walrave Michel Waeterloos Cato Ponnet Koen
JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (2022)
Summary reports and blog posts:
Check our blog post (in Dutch) summarizing the main results or contact the authors.
An overview of research results can be found in this summary report or the research report (in Dutch)
For more information about the forthcoming research and upcoming publications, please contact the authors.