The Role of Transparency, Trust, and Social Influence on Uncertainty Reduction in Times of Pandemics: Empirical Study on the Adoption of COVID-19 Tracing Apps

Abstract

Background Contact tracing apps are an essential component of an effective COVID-19 testing strategy to counteract the spread of the pandemic and thereby avoid overburdening the health care system. As the adoption rates in several regions are undesirable, governments must increase the acceptance of COVID-19 tracing apps in these times of uncertainty. Objective Building on the Uncertainty Reduction Theory (URT), this study aims to investigate how uncertainty reduction measures foster the adoption of COVID-19 tracing apps and how their use affects the perception of different risks. Methods Representative survey data were gathered at two measurement points (before and after the app’s release) and analyzed by performing covariance-based structural equation modeling (n=1003). Results We found that uncertainty reduction measures in the form of the transparency dimensions disclosure and accuracy, as well as social influence and trust in government, foster the adoption process. The use of the COVID-19 tracing app in turn reduced the perceived privacy and performance risks but did not reduce social risks and health-related COVID-19 concerns. Conclusions This study contributes to the mass adoption of health care technology and URT research by integrating interactive communication measures and transparency as a multidimensional concept to reduce different types of uncertainty over time. Furthermore, our results help to derive communication strategies to promote the mass adoption of COVID-19 tracing apps, thus detecting infection chains and allowing intelligent COVID-19 testing.

Best Practice Guidance for Digital Contact Tracing Apps: A Cross-disciplinary Review of the Literature

“…The IDCTA should be voluntary and consent-based according to the WHO and ECDC ethical guidance on DCTAs, and this view is also prevalent in the academic literature [ 40 , 51 - 55 ]. For voluntary DCTAs, ensuring transparency and trustworthiness is important to maximize population penetration [ 52 , 53 , 71 - 79 ]. Transparency can be achieved by making the underlying DCTA algorithms open source [ 52 , 80 , 81 ], and this is established as best practice [ 82 , 83 ].…”

“…This area should be a focus of future research. DCTAs need to detect contact events accurately to optimize uptake [ 79 , 105 , 144 , 145 ]. Ultra-wideband is a low energy means of enabling short-range high bandwidth communications that can transmit data with minimal noise interference.…”

“…• Loss of trust in public health authorities and public health measures [14, 56,66] The IDCTA should be voluntary and consent-based according to the WHO and ECDC ethical guidance on DCTAs, and this view is also prevalent in the academic literature [40,[51][52][53][54][55]. For voluntary DCTAs, ensuring transparency and trustworthiness is important to maximize population penetration [52,53,[71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79].…”

“…According to the EDPB and the European Union eHealth guidance, Bluetooth LE proximity detection should be used because it maximizes privacy preservation and is widely available, which are important to maximize population penetration [41,42,119]. However, population penetration will also rely on belief in the accuracy of the DCTA to detect contact events [79,105,144,145]. DCTAs that use Bluetooth LE alone may not have adequate accuracy [70,132,146,147,185].…”

Self-Focused and Other-Focused Health Concerns as Predictors of the Uptake of Corona Contact Tracing Apps: Empirical Study

“…Ample research has demonstrated that intentions do not necessarily translate to actual behavior [ 55 ]. Accordingly, two studies on CTAs reported a gap between the intention and the actual installation of the app [ 45 , 56 ]. Moreover, due to the clear prosocial framing in the experiment, social desirability bias might have been an important factor influencing its outcome.…”