Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia collected survey responses from 3,547 U.S. adults over a three-week period in July 2020 to measure attitude toward using digital health data to respond to the pandemic.
Four survey findings:
- There was not any digital health scenario where respondents gave a majority approval for using digital health tools to track COVID-19 using their data.
- Having a family member who contracted COVID-19 or living in an area with high rates of infection didn’t affect a respondent’s approval for digital health tools to manage the pandemic.
- Forty percent of respondents supported digital contact tracing programs by Apple and Google. If the program shared data with public health departments, approval rose to 43 percent, which was the highest approval rating of any scenario. Making the program mandatory decreased support to 30 percent.
- Only 28 percent of respondents approved monitoring social media to set health policies, which was the lowest approval rating for any digital data program.
