The Containment Scouts: First Insights into an Initiative to Increase the Public Health Workforce for Contact Tracing during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany

Dunja Said, Simon Brinkwirth, Angelina Taylor, Robby Markwart and Tim Eckmanns
Additional contact information
Dunja Said: Unit 37—Healthcare-Associated Infections, Surveillance of Antibiotic Resistance and Consumption, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Seestraße 10, 13353 Berlin, Germany
Simon Brinkwirth: Unit 37—Healthcare-Associated Infections, Surveillance of Antibiotic Resistance and Consumption, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Seestraße 10, 13353 Berlin, Germany
Angelina Taylor: Unit 37—Healthcare-Associated Infections, Surveillance of Antibiotic Resistance and Consumption, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Seestraße 10, 13353 Berlin, Germany
Robby Markwart: Institute of General Practice and Family Medicine, Jena University Hospital, Bachstraße 18, 07743 Jena, Germany
Tim Eckmanns: Unit 37—Healthcare-Associated Infections, Surveillance of Antibiotic Resistance and Consumption, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Seestraße 10, 13353 Berlin, Germany

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 17, 1-10

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic in Germany has demanded a substantially larger public health workforce to perform contact tracing and contact management of COVID-19 cases, in line with recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO). In response, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) established the national “Containment Scout Initiative” (CSI) to support the local health authorities with a short-term workforce solution. It is part of a range of measures for strengthening the public health system in order to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Germany. The CSI is an example of how solutions to address critical health system capacity issues can be implemented quickly. It also demonstrates that medical or health-related backgrounds may not be necessary to support health authorities with pandemic-specific tasks and fulfil accurate contact tracing. However, it is a short-term solution and cannot compensate for the lack of existing qualified staff as well as other deficits that exist within the public health sector in Germany. This article describes the structure and process of the first phase of this initiative in order to support health policymakers, public health practitioners, and researchers considering innovative and flexible approaches for addressing urgent workforce capacity issues.

Keywords: contact tracing; contact management; SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; containment scouts; public health workforce (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/17/9325/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/17/9325/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:17:p:9325-:d:628671

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().