COVID-19 Contact Tracing: A Review on mHealth Application and HIPPA (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Contact tracing has been implemented as a necessary tool to slow the spread outbreaks over the years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the introduction of digital applications has allowed a lot of flexibility regarding transmission by driving more people to testing and quarantine. OBJECTIVE This study discusses contact tracing application usage in COVID-19, compare and analyze them based on HIPPA privacy rule. We also discuss challenges facing these new applications and recommend best practices. METHODS The research sampled top ten applications currently in use. Using Android devices, we downloaded and interacted with apps that had over 100,000 downloads on google play store the way a normal user would. we reviewed their privacy policies and compared them against HIPPAs’ privacy rule and generated a checklist. RESULTS The study interacted and analyzed 10 contact tracing applications, particular attention was paid to how the apps’ privacy policies and Google Play Store app privacy policy descriptions disclosed information. CONCLUSIONS Contact tracing applications have proved to be a fundamental pillar during this pandemic. Aligning this apps with the HIPPA privacy rule is one of the major challenges they face. Privacy concerns, user adoption and perception obstacles have also been associated with this apps. CLINICALTRIAL Not applicable.

Privacy Rule Decision Criteria: An Examination of Core and Catalyst Criteria that Shape Disclosures in the Work-Spouse Relationship

Despite the prevalence of work spouses, scarce empirical research has focused on the communication occurring within these relationships, leaving managers with little understanding as to whether organizations can or should communicate support for employees forming these relationships and how privacy is navigated among work spouses. Building on McBride and Bergen’s conceptualization of the work-spouse relationship, we used Communication Privacy Management theory (CPM) to understand what, if any, privacy rule decision criteria individuals used as they negotiated disclosures within their work-spouse relationships. Analysis of interviews with 41 people in work-spouse relationships suggests that participants recognized both their own core privacy rule decision criteria and when these criteria were similar to or different from the criteria influencing their work spouse’s. Furthermore, work-spouse relationships formed despite organizational efforts to keep them at bay. Theoretically, the findings add to CPM theory, such that they establish the need to examine catalyst criteria as current and previous, as well as argue for the addition of confirming criteria to account for situations in which catalysts reinforce routinized privacy rules. Overall, the findings from this study advance the literature on communication in the work-spouse relationship and CPM theory and highlight the role that workplaces play in fostering these types of relationships.

How do mothers manage their privacy with adolescents? Exploring mother–adolescent communication in Mexican immigrant families

The present study seeks to understand how Mexican immigrant mothers manage private information with adolescent children activating the state of emotional parentification. “Emotional parentificiation” occurs when there is a role reversal between parent and adolescent where the child is prematurely given adult responsibilities in the family and provides emotional support to parents. Sixteen Mexican immigrant mothers participated in individual interviews and as a result of the thematic analysis, three themes were identified: (1) adolescent children serving as a reluctant confidant, (2) adolescent children becoming a deliberate confidant, and (3) adolescent children employing confidant privacy rule strategies. Findings discussed mothers’ perspective of adolescent children coping with unsolicited private information from their mothers during parent–adolescent conversations where the adolescent children were put into a situation of being a reluctant confidant. Findings also demonstrated that some adolescent children became a deliberate confidant seeking information from their mothers. In reaction to mothers’ disclosure, the study identified three types of confidant privacy rule strategies used by adolescent children, that is, comforting, mediating, and protecting.