A Qualitative Analysis of Local Health Departments' Experiences With Contact-Tracing Tools in Response to COVID-19.

In March of 2020, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in response to COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In the United States, there have been about 40 million individuals infected with COVID-19, almost 645000 COVID-19-related deaths, and these figures continue to rise. The pandemic response has necessitated engagement at the federal, state, and local levels of public health (as well as from health care and community partners), and local health departments (LHDs), as the chief health strategists in their communities, have played a vital and diverse role in COVID-19 prevention and response. Responding to COVID-19 has required many strategies, including aggressive testing, vaccination, and extensive contact tracing. Contact tracing has long been an LHD practice to interrupt the spread of and contain infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections. It involves activities such as notifying those exposed to a disease, assisting with testing, monitoring for symptoms, and requesting self-quarantine or self-isolation. Despite routinely performing contact tracing prior to the pandemic, the transmissibility and severity of COVID-19 infections and resulting massive explosion of cases and contacts meant that LHDs were rapidly inundated, and many sought to implement an enhanced contact-tracing tool for improved case management. While quantitative analysis and reports regarding the tools adopted at the state and local level exist, qualitative inquiry into better understanding the impact and usefulness of these tools has not yet been reported. As a result, beginning in 2021, the