Outcomes of a Community Engagement and Information Gathering Program to Support Telephone-Based COVID-19 Contact Tracing: Descriptive Analysis.

Background: Contact tracing is an important public health tool for curbing the spread of infectious diseases. Effective and efficient contact tracing involves the rapid identification of individuals with infection and their exposed contacts and ensuring their isolation or quarantine, respectively. Manual contact tracing via telephone call and digital proximity app technology have been key strategies in mitigating the spread of COVID-19.

Community-Based Workforce for COVID-19 Contact Tracing and Prevention Activities in New York City, July-December 2020.

Objectives: High rates of hospitalization and death disproportionately affected Black, Latino, and Asian residents of New York City at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. To suppress COVID-19 transmission, New York City implemented a workforce of community engagement specialists (CESs) to conduct home-based contact tracing when telephone numbers were lacking or telephone-based efforts were unsuccessful and to disseminate COVID-19 information and sanitary supplies.

Materials And Methods: We describe the recruitment, training, and deployment of a multilingual CES workforce with diverse sociodemographic backgrounds during July-December 2020 in New York City.