Digital technology and disease surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic: a scoping review protocol

Abstract

IntroductionInfectious diseases pose a risk to public health, requiring efficient strategies for disease prevention. Digital health surveillance technologies provide new opportunities to enhance disease prevention, detection, tracking, reporting and analysis. However, in addition to concerns regarding the effectiveness of these technologies in meeting public health goals, there are also concerns regarding the ethics, legality, safety and sustainability of digital surveillance technologies. This scoping review examines the literature on digital surveillance for public health purposes during the COVID-19 pandemic to identify health-related applications of digital surveillance technologies, and to highlight discussions of the implications of these technologies.Methods and analysisThe scoping review will be guided by the framework proposed by Arksey and O’Malley and the guidelines outlined by Colquhoun et al and Levac et al. We will search Medline (Ovid), PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), ACM Digital Library, Google Scholar and IEEE Explore for relevant studies published between December 2019 and December 2020. The review will also include grey literature. Data will be managed and analysed through an extraction table and thematic analysis.Ethics and disseminationFindings will be disseminated through traditional academic channels, as well as social media channels and research briefs and infographics. We will target our dissemination to provincial and federal public health organisations, as well as technology companies and community-based organisations managing the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Attitude towards dengue control efforts with the potential of digital technology during COVID-19: partial least squares-structural equation modeling

“…54 Digital health surveillance technologies assist in disease prevention, detection, tracking, reporting and analysis. 55,56 The development of digital technology supported by the infrastructure can assist in reporting. An integrated digital surveillance system is needed for dengue control.…”

Short- and Long-Term Predicted and Witnessed Consequences of Digital Surveillance During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review

“…The protocol used to conduct this research followed the 5-stage methodology described by Arksey and O’Malley [ 15 ] and Levac et al [ 16 ], which included (1) identifying the research question; (2) identifying relevant studies; (3) study selection; (4) charting the data; and (5) collating, summarizing, and reporting the findings. A summary of the study’s methodology is included below; for a complete description, refer to a previously published scoping review protocol [ 17 ]. The study’s reporting structure also conformed to the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines and checklist ( Multimedia Appendix 1 [ 18 ]) [ 19 ].…”