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COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing

COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing is a research topic within Information Systems. Science Explorer counts 5.3k research works in it since 1967. 10.3% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the role of digital technologies, particularly contact tracing apps, in the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores the ethical challenges, privacy concerns, adoption intention, and the use of mobile health apps in pandemic planning and response.

  • Digital Technologies
  • Contact Tracing Apps
  • COVID-19
  • Privacy Concerns
  • Public Health Response
  • Ethical Challenges
  • Mobile Health Apps
  • Surveillance Technologies
  • Data Protection
  • Adoption Intention
Research works
5.3k
fractional, since 1967
In the world top 10%
548
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.3%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+13%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
28% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing

Which countries lead COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing research?

By volume, the United States and India publish the most (464 and 302 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 464 works
  2. 2 India 302 works
  3. 3 United Kingdom 172 works
  4. 4 China 155 works
  5. 5 Indonesia 147 works
  6. 6 Germany 121 works
  7. 7 Italy 81 works
  8. 8 Canada 76 works
  9. 9 Australia 73 works
  10. 10 Spain 58 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 28.1%India: 18.3%United Kingdom: 10.4%China: 9.4%6 others listed: 33.7%28%largest
United States464 · 28.1%India302 · 18.3%United Kingdom172 · 10.4%China155 · 9.4%6 others listed556 · 33.7%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing research?

By volume in 2022-now, Design Intelligence (United States) publishes the most COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing research, followed by University of Oxford and University of Indonesia.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Design Intelligence (United States)United States 21 works
  2. 2 University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 14 works
  3. 3 University of IndonesiaIndonesia 12 works
  4. 4 Amity UniversityIndia 11 works
  5. 5 World Health OrganizationSwitzerland 11 works
  6. 6 Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States 10 works
  7. 7 University of North Carolina at Chapel HillUnited States 10 works
  8. 8 Harvard UniversityUnited States 9 works
  9. 9 University of TorontoCanada 9 works
  10. 10 University College LondonUnited Kingdom 8 works

Who are the leading researchers in COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing?

The most-cited researchers publishing on COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing include Yoshua Bengio, Richard M. Ryan and Martin McKee.

  1. 1 Yoshua Bengio Canada 476k citations
  2. 2 Richard M. Ryan United States 395k citations
  3. 3 Martin McKee United Kingdom 270k citations
  4. 4 Florian Fischer Germany 257k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing?

The most cited paper in COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing is "Feasibility of controlling COVID-19 outbreaks by isolation of cases and contacts" (Joel Hellewell et al., 2020), with 2,830 citations. Next come "Quantifying SARS-CoV-2 transmission suggests epidemic control with digital contact tracing" (2,653) and "The real-time city? Big data and smart urbanism" (2,583).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Feasibility of controlling COVID-19 outbreaks by isolation of cases and contacts Joel Hellewell et al. · The Lancet Global Health Open access 29 Feb 2020 2,830
2 Quantifying SARS-CoV-2 transmission suggests epidemic control with digital contact tracing Luca Ferretti, Chris Wymant, Michelle L. Kendall et al. · Science Open access 31 Mar 2020 2,653
3 The real-time city? Big data and smart urbanism Rob Kitchin · GeoJournal 28 Nov 2013 2,583
4 Risk of COVID-19 among front-line health-care workers and the general community: a prospective cohort study Long H. Nguyen et al. · The Lancet Public Health Open access 31 Jul 2020 2,316
5 The SARS, MERS and novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemics, the newest and biggest global health threats: what lessons have we learned? Noah Charles Peeri, Nistha Shrestha, Md. Siddikur Rahman et al. · International Journal of Epidemiology Open access 12 Feb 2020 1,670
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing research done?

The largest centres of COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing research in 2022-now are London (United Kingdom), Beijing (China), New Delhi (India) and New York (United States). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Norman.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 LondonUnited Kingdom 49 works
  2. 2 BeijingChina 29 works
  3. 3 New DelhiIndia 28 works
  4. 4 New YorkUnited States 27 works
  5. 5 JakartaIndonesia 27 works
  6. 6 Washington D.C.United States 23 works
  7. 7 NormanUnited States 22 works
  8. 8 BengaluruIndia 18 works
  9. 9 TokyoJapan 18 works
  10. 10 SingaporeSingapore 18 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. NormanUS · 21.7 works24×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing than the world average.

See COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing on the map

Where is the best place to study COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing?

Among universities, judged by research, University of Oxford, Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 12.9429%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Harvard UniversityJohns Hopkins Univer…University of OxfordAmity University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 68.213.2%4.0×14 -30.0%
2Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States 57.723.2%2.8×10 -0.5%
3Harvard UniversityUnited States 52.627.3%1.2×10 -37.4%
4Amity UniversityIndia 38.23.9%11.1×11 -17.0%
5University of TorontoCanada 35.914.9%1.8×9 -6.9%
6University of IndonesiaIndonesia 34.12.2%4.0×12 +356.9%
7University of North Carolina at Chapel HillUnited States 30.55.9%2.3×10 +256.7%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing, country by country

Is COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 13% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2021. The fastest-growing topics are COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.0064% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing0.011% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing10.7% in 20252020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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