Earlier this year I joined the evaluation team of a community contact tracing project. The project started back in April when no contact tracing was taking place. The evaluation report as outlined here outlines some of the reasons the project worked. These reasons included: the expertise of the steering group who set the project up (mostly retired health care professionals) , having a strong local connection, proving emotional and practical support alongside contact tracing and developing a sense of trust. I outline these in a previous blog post as outlined here

In early September some of the main findings of the report were outlined in an opinion piece in the BMJ as outlined here. The title was “Best practice in contact tracing: How should an effective system be organized?” Today I spotted that the BMJ piece was listed in this Public Health England report on behavioral and social science articles relevant to Covid19. Not just that, but its the first one in the list. I am not entirely sure who will have read the report, or the articles it recommends, but it’s just possible that I might influence national policy. There is certainly room for improvement and I think that following the recommendations in the report or even just the summary given in the article would certainly help make contact tracing work a lot better than it is now.