OBJECTIVES: Although many workplace COVID-19 digital health assessment, contact tracing, and passport tools require active engagement by employees and managers to be effective, there is little real-world evidence exploring utilization of and engagement with these tools. This study aims to describe engagement and associated employee characteristics with a digital tool for SARS-CoV-2 exposure and infection.

METHODS: Employees of a multi-site utility company were offered return-to-work digital tools including a 7-item daily symptom survey. Employee engagement with the tool was defined via measures of frequency, intensity, longevity, and recency. Using multivariable linear regression, we estimated the relationship between engagement and individual employee-level characteristics (age group, sex, race, ethnicity, Body Mass Index, education, chronic conditions, household size, smoker, work location) and a developed engagement index.

RESULTS: In 2021, 349 (20.7%) employees consented to participate in the study. Their average age was 49.7 years (SD 11.1), 44.8% were female, 50.7% were White, 32.9% Black, 16.3% other. Employees filled out an average of 3.6 (SD 1.12) of 7 surveys per week and 93.5% filled out surveys throughout the entire time offered (longevity). 33.5% were routed to further screening at least once due to exposure to or symptoms of COVID-19. After adjusting for covariates, age, lower values of BMI, and employee work location at headquarters were associated with higher levels of engagement measures, and the composite engagement index. Regressing the standardized engagement index on employee characteristics, engagement decreased with age. The youngest employees, ages 18-34, were 1.40 SD (p<0.001) less likely to engage than those over age 64, ages 35-44 0.74 SD (p<0.001), ages 45-54 0.49 SD (p=0.018) and ages 55-64 0.15 SD (p=0.460) less likely to engage.

CONCLUSIONS: We found considerable variation in engagement with the digital tool. This study expands knowledge of real-world application of digital solutions using data directly collected from users in a workplace setting.