The UK Covid-19 contact tracing app as both an emerging technology and public health intervention

The need to consider promissory discourses

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7787774
AutoresGabrielle Samuel (0000-0001-8111-2730, King's College London, autor de correspondencia), Rosie Sims (0000-0002-5687-2065, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies)
Año2023
Volumen27
Número4
Páginas625-644
Fecha de publicación2023-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHealth An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health Illness and Medicine (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1363-4593 • E-ISSN: 1461-7196
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/13634593211060768
PMID34812092
OpenAlexW3216711725
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas41

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) COVID-19 contact tracing app was announced to the British public on 12th April 2020. The UK government endorsed the app as a public health intervention that would improve public health, protect the NHS and ‘save lives’. On 5th May 2020 the technology was released for trial on the Isle of Wight. However, the trial was halted in June 2020, reportedly due to technological issues. The app was later remodelled and launched to the public in September 2020. The rapid development, trial and discontinuation of the app over a short period of a few months meant that the mobilisation and effect of the discourses associated with the app could be traced relatively easily. In this paper we aimed to explore how these discourses were constructed in the media, and their effect on actors – in particular, those who developed and those who trialled the app. Promissory discourses were prevalent, the trajectory of which aligned with theories developed in the sociology of expectations. We describe this trajectory, and then interpret its implications in terms of infectious disease public health practices and responsibilities

Contact tracing · Discontinuation · Disease · Media studies · Political science · Public engagement · Public health · Public relations · Sociology · COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing · Global Security and Public Health · Immune responses and vaccinations · Medicine · Nursing · Public Administration