Data Released from a Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security–NPR–Partners In Health Survey on National Contact Tracing Workforce: December 2020

February 17, 2021 – The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and its partners, the National Public Radio (NPR) and Partners In Health, have released data on contact tracers and care resource coordination from their latest joint survey on the state of the national coronavirus contact tracing workforce.

The data come from a December 2020 survey of 33 state and territorial health departments, which found that there are now 70,538 contact tracers working across the United States, a more than sixfold increase since the pandemic began. In April 2020, experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security estimated that at least 100,000 new contact tracers would be needed across the United States to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

In December 2020, Partners In Health joined the survey efforts to collect data on the status of care resource coordination.

Going forward, Senior Scholar Dr. Crystal Watson and Senior Analyst Lucia Mullen, both at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, will continue to field surveys and collect data periodically.

Future data will be reported publicly on the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center website. NPR will also report on the results of each survey as it is released.