How health-related messaging increase intentions to download and use mobile contact (COVID-19) tracing apps: Preliminary findings

Abstract

This study contributes to current discussions regarding the use of digital solutions and especially (mobile) contact tracingcontact-tracing apps (MCTA) in COVID-19 containment. This study is timely because several countries around the world andworld, including African countriescountries, face an acute shortage of COVID-19 vaccines and as a result complimentary measures and innovative solutions like MCTA can be useful in the containment of COVID-19 disease pandemic. Towardsd this end, the current study integrates the health belief model (HBM) with the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to investigate MCTA acceptability based on data collected from online respondents in Nigeria. The results of the empirical analyses, using PLS-SEM, indicate that perceived disease vulnerability, perceived severity of the disease, but but not perceived barriers ofto taking action, are important determinants of attitude towardsd MCTA. The results further show that, while attitude is positively related to MCTA adoption intention, both perceived disease vulnerability and perceived severity of the disease indirectly contribute to MCTA adoption intention through attitude towardsd MCTA. Overall, the proposed research model explains about 58.8% variation in the intention to adopt MCTA and therefore shines a positive light on the topic that is critical for shaping COVID-19 messaging in different countries of the world and especially in African countries where COVID-19 testing and vaccination drive remain worryingly slow.

Keywords

• COVID-19 pandemic
• Health Belief Model (HBM)
• Contact tracing app acceptance
• Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)