IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v12y2025i1d10.1057_s41599-024-03998-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

There’s (not) an App for that: situating smartphones, Excel and the techno-political interfaces and infrastructures of digital solutions for COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Luke Heemsbergen

    (Deakin University)

  • Catherine Bennett

    (Deakin University)

  • Monique Mann

    (Victoria University of Wellington)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the operational-infrastructural puzzles of mHealth via COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps (CTA). Significant literature exists on user adoption of the platformisation of public health during the pandemic, but there has been limited consideration of how those responsible for implementing CTA design, deployment, and use of public health infrastructures did so. We redress this imbalance by exploring some of the politics and practicalities of offering CTA as technical ‘solutions’ to pandemic problems. Our work adds to previous comparative analyses of mHealth by drawing on data from key actors across government, industry, and civil society involved in designing and implementing CTA into public health across 5 jurisdictions: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. While CTA research often frames tensions around efficacy and adoption (e.g. privacy trade-off), we find hidden infrastructural tensions within a situation of political and technical constraints in the ‘back end’ of the platformisation of public health. The paper offers new insights to pandemic politics by shifting questions from digital contact tracing and pandemic surveillance interfaces to understanding CTA as infrastructures of public health. While CTA user-software interactions produce certain research questions, querying the infrastructural complexity of digital public health projects require and produce a different set of data and knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Luke Heemsbergen & Catherine Bennett & Monique Mann, 2025. "There’s (not) an App for that: situating smartphones, Excel and the techno-political interfaces and infrastructures of digital solutions for COVID-19," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-024-03998-z
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-024-03998-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-024-03998-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-024-03998-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Caspar Geenen & Joren Raymenants & Sarah Gorissen & Jonathan Thibaut & Jodie McVernon & Natalie Lorent & Emmanuel André, 2023. "Individual level analysis of digital proximity tracing for COVID-19 in Belgium highlights major bottlenecks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Toija Cinque, 2022. "Protecting communities during the COVID-19 global health crisis: health data research and the international use of contact tracing technologies," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, December.
    3. Linnet Taylor, 2021. "There Is an App for That: Technological Solutionism as COVID-19 Policy in the Global North," Springer Books, in: Emile Aarts & Hein Fleuren & Margriet Sitskoorn & Ton Wilthagen (ed.), The New Common, chapter 30, pages 209-215, Springer.
    4. Dušan Ristić & Dušan Marinković, 2022. "Biopolitics of othering during the COVID-19 pandemic," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, December.
    5. Chris Wymant & Luca Ferretti & Daphne Tsallis & Marcos Charalambides & Lucie Abeler-Dörner & David Bonsall & Robert Hinch & Michelle Kendall & Luke Milsom & Matthew Ayres & Chris Holmes & Mark Briers , 2021. "The epidemiological impact of the NHS COVID-19 app," Nature, Nature, vol. 594(7863), pages 408-412, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michelle Kendall & Daphne Tsallis & Chris Wymant & Andrea Francia & Yakubu Balogun & Xavier Didelot & Luca Ferretti & Christophe Fraser, 2023. "Epidemiological impacts of the NHS COVID-19 app in England and Wales throughout its first year," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Zengmiao Wang & Peng Yang & Ruixue Wang & Luca Ferretti & Lele Zhao & Shan Pei & Xiaoli Wang & Lei Jia & Daitao Zhang & Yonghong Liu & Ziyan Liu & Quanyi Wang & Christophe Fraser & Huaiyu Tian, 2024. "Estimating the contribution of setting-specific contacts to SARS-CoV-2 transmission using digital contact tracing data," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-8, December.
    3. van der Waal, Nadine Elisa & de Wit, Jan & Bol, Nadine & Ebbers, Wolfgang & Hooft, Lotty & Metting, Esther & van der Laan, Laura Nynke, 2022. "Predictors of contact tracing app adoption: Integrating the UTAUT, HBM and contextual factors," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Núria Vallès-Peris & Oriol Barat-Auleda & Miquel Domènech, 2021. "Robots in Healthcare? What Patients Say," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-18, September.
    5. Fetzer, Thiemo, 2021. "Measuring the Epidemiological Impact of a False Negative : Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1386, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    6. Roberto Aringhieri & Sara Bigharaz & Alessandro Druetto & Davide Duma & Andrea Grosso & Alberto Guastalla, 2024. "The daily swab test collection problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 335(3), pages 1449-1470, April.
    7. Caspar Geenen & Joren Raymenants & Sarah Gorissen & Jonathan Thibaut & Jodie McVernon & Natalie Lorent & Emmanuel André, 2023. "Individual level analysis of digital proximity tracing for COVID-19 in Belgium highlights major bottlenecks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    8. Eliah Aronoff-Spencer & Sepideh Mazrouee & Rishi Graham & Mark S Handcock & Kevin Nguyen & Camille Nebeker & Mohsen Malekinejad & Christopher A Longhurst, 2023. "Exposure notification system activity as a leading indicator for SARS-COV-2 caseload forecasting," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(8), pages 1-8, August.
    9. Li, Dezhi & Zhao, Yongheng & Zhou, Shenghua & Ng, S. Thomas, 2024. "Social media data-based spatio-temporal assessment of public attitudes towards digital contact tracing applications: A case of health code application in mainland China," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-024-03998-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.