42 | Early Lessons for Effective and Equitable Contact Tracing

As states and counties grapple with containing the spread of COVID-19, they have learned that the virus places novel demands on contact tracing efforts. Early experiences from states with contact tracing programs suggest that a successful contact tracing program needs to account for the economic circumstances of people infected, as well as their families; it needs to account for the emotional and psychological ramifications of learning you and your loved ones are at risk of infection; it also needs to account for contextual and community factors, such as trust in government, household members' immigration status, language, and culture, that could be barriers to reaching the very populations most at-risk of contracting the disease. On this episode of On the Evidence, four guests discuss emerging lessons from states and localities on conducting effective and equitable contact tracing for COVID-19. This episode is an abridged and edited version of a webinar hosted by Mathematica on Aug. 21. The guests are: • Sandra Hernández, president and chief executive officer, California Health Care Foundation • Candace Miller, senior researcher, Mathematica • Elizabeth Odell, director of medical operations, La Clínica de La Raza, Inc. • Marina Pravdic, manager, communications, policy and advocacy, The Rockefeller Foundation The wide-ranging discussion covers the following topics: • how contact tracing for COVID-19 is different from past contact tracing efforts for other infectious diseases; • how a jurisdiction should measure the operational effectiveness of a contact tracing program; • what states and localities are doing to incorporate equity into their contact tracing programs; and • what role philanthropy can play in supporting contact tracing.