Prescriptive Factors of COVID-19 Contact-Tracing Technology (COCOA) in Japan

Abstract

Digital contact tracing applications have been promoted as a tool to address the COVID-19 pandemic. The effectiveness of these applications depends on their rate of adoption. However, this appears to be low. Therefore, this study investigated the psychological factors associated with the use of a contact tracing application (COCOA) in Japan. An online survey was administered to 1000 participants living in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Respondents were classified into three groups: advocates, critics, and undecided. Our results indicated that perceptions of risk, benefit, cost, social norm and knowledge were significant prescriptive factors of COCOA usage. The results revealed that the critics group perceived low benefit and social norms appeared to hinder application adoption relative to the undecided group.