"I can't do it": A qualitative study exploring case and contact experiences with COVID-19 contact tracing.

Background: Low engagement in contact tracing for COVID-19 dramatically reduces its impact, but little is known about how experiences, environments and characteristics of cases and contacts influence engagement.

Methods: We recruited a convenience sample of COVID-19 cases and contacts from the New Haven Health Department's contact tracing program for interviews about their contact tracing experiences. We analyzed transcripts thematically, organized themes using the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, Behavior (COM-B) model, and identified candidate interventions using the linked Behavior Change Wheel Framework.

Lessons Learned From COVID-19 Contact Tracing During a Public Health Emergency: A Prospective Implementation Study.

Contact tracing is a core element of the public health response to emerging infectious diseases including COVID-19. Better understanding the implementation context of contact tracing for pandemics, including individual- and systems-level predictors of success, is critical to preparing for future epidemics. We carried out a prospective implementation study of an emergency volunteer contact tracing program established in New Haven, Connecticut between April 4 and May 19, 2020.

Implementation of a volunteer contact tracing program for COVID-19 in the United States: A qualitative focus group study.

Background: Contact tracing is an important tool for suppressing COVID-19 but has been difficult to adapt to the conditions of a public health emergency. This study explored the experiences and perspectives of volunteer contact tracers in order to identify facilitators, challenges, and novel solutions for implementing COVID-19 contact tracing.

Methods: As part of a study to evaluate an emergently established volunteer contact tracing program for COVID-19 in New Haven, Connecticut, April-June 2020, we conducted focus groups with 36 volunteer contact tracers, thematically analyzed the data, and synthesized the findings using the RE-AIM implementation framework.

Community Trace: Rapid Establishment of a Volunteer Contact Tracing Program for COVID-19.

Contact tracing was one of the core public health strategies implemented during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this essay, we describe the rapid establishment of a volunteer contact tracing program in New Haven, Connecticut. We describe successes of the program and challenges that were faced.