Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Oct 29;11(10):e053962.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-053962.

Digital technology and disease surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic: a scoping review protocol

Lorie Donelle  1 , Jodi Hall  2   3 , Brad Hiebert  2 , Jacob J Shelley  4   5 , Maxwell J Smith  5 , Jason Gilliland  5   6   7 , Saverio Stranges  7   8   9   10 , Anita Kothari  5 , Jacquelyn Burkell  11 , Tommy Cooke  12 , Jed Long  6 , James M Shelley  2 , Deanna Befus  2 , Leigha Comer  2 , Marionette Ngole  2 , Meagan Stanley  13
Affiliations

Digital technology and disease surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic: a scoping review protocol

Lorie Donelle et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Introduction: Infectious diseases pose a risk to public health, requiring efficient strategies for disease prevention. Digital health surveillance technologies provide new opportunities to enhance disease prevention, detection, tracking, reporting and analysis. However, in addition to concerns regarding the effectiveness of these technologies in meeting public health goals, there are also concerns regarding the ethics, legality, safety and sustainability of digital surveillance technologies. This scoping review examines the literature on digital surveillance for public health purposes during the COVID-19 pandemic to identify health-related applications of digital surveillance technologies, and to highlight discussions of the implications of these technologies.

Methods and analysis: The scoping review will be guided by the framework proposed by Arksey and O'Malley and the guidelines outlined by Colquhoun et al and Levac et al. We will search Medline (Ovid), PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), ACM Digital Library, Google Scholar and IEEE Explore for relevant studies published between December 2019 and December 2020. The review will also include grey literature. Data will be managed and analysed through an extraction table and thematic analysis.

Ethics and dissemination: Findings will be disseminated through traditional academic channels, as well as social media channels and research briefs and infographics. We will target our dissemination to provincial and federal public health organisations, as well as technology companies and community-based organisations managing the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; public health; qualitative research.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) chart detailing the study selection process.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kind C. What will the first pandemic of the algorithmic age mean for data governance? Ada lovelace institute, 2020. Available: https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/what-will-the-first-pandemic-of-the... [Accessed 29 May 2021].
    1. Bennet CJ, Haggerty KD, Lyon D. Transparent lives: surveillance in Canada. Edmonton, Alberta: Athabasca University Press, 2014.
    1. Lyon D. Surveillance studies: an overview. Oxford: Polity Press, 2007.
    1. Wang CJ, Ng CY, Brook RH. Response to COVID-19 in Taiwan: big data analytics, new technology, and proactive testing. JAMA 2020;323:1341–2. 10.1001/jama.2020.3151 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Human Rights Watch [Internet] . Mobile location data and Covid-19: Q&A. Available: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/13/mobile-location-data-and-covid-19-qa [Accessed 29 May 2021].

Publication types