4 Takeaways From a People-First Public Health Response

A new study from Partners In Health (PIH) and collaborators offers lessons for the future of public health. Published in August 2026, the paper examines the Massachusetts COVID-19 Community Tracing Collaborative (CTC), the United States' first large-scale contact tracing support system.

The CTC was a partnership of four groups, including PIH, built to help Massachusetts identify people with COVID-19 and their close contacts, connect them with care, and address the practical barriers that could make it difficult for them to isolate or quarantine. More than 4,000 people were recruited and trained to support the effort, which ultimately reached hundreds of thousands of people across the state.

The findings, published in the Journal of Public Health Management & Practice, offer a closer look at what made the CTC possible, and what its experience can teach public health leaders preparing for future emergencies.

Here are four takeaways from a people-first public health response:

1. Public health programs can scale fast.

The scale of the CTC was remarkable. Across the life of the program, staff made or received over 3 million phone calls, talking with nearly 640,000 people—roughly one out of every 11 people in Massachusetts. Staff spent approximately 27 million minutes, the equivalent of 50.7 years, on the phone answering questions about COVID-19, sharing advice, helping people access supplies, and connecting them to social services.

The CTC reached people and achieved strong outcomes, demonstrating that a program of this scale could be rapidly carried out and sustained, even during an unprecedented public health emergency.

“The CTC was a huge effort by so many people, and I am proud to have been a part of it,” says Heather Fay, study co-author and PIH senior manager, health information systems. “Our data system and staff allowed us to put data into action, nimbly adapting our approach to meet the needs of the people and municipalities we were serving. We routinely used data to improve data quality, adjust protocols based on surges in cases, and follow the trends of the pandemic. Responding to these trends allowed us to adjust our approaches and was a key contributor to our success in reaching 79% of our cases and contacts.”

2. Effective public health responses meet people’s needs.

Contact tracing is often thought of as a way to track the spread of disease. While true, the CTC’s program went beyond tracking COVID-19 to help meet people’s needs. It was a program that cared for people. 

Not everyone had the means to isolate or quarantine, so the CTC helped them with the practical resources they needed to follow public health guidance.

Through its care resource coordination efforts, the CTC connected more than 100,000 people with various social services, including food, rent, medication, appointments with primary care providers, and more.

3. People are the most important resource.

While data systems and protocols were essential to the CTC, staff were the most important resource. The expansive workforce included case investigators, contact tracers, care resource coordinators, supervisors, and others working across state and local public health systems.

“The CTC was one of the most complex and ultimately impactful programs I’ve ever had the joy to work on,” says Dr. Emily Wroe, the study’s first author and PIH senior health and policy advisor. “It was a powerful example of how pragmatic connections across large-scale public health programs, deep-rooted community work, and quality clinical care — while sometimes elusive— can come together for palpable and exponential impact. It was also an amazing reminder about how our people and our staff are our most important resource in all that we do!"

4. The lessons extend beyond COVID-19.

While the COVID-19 global health emergency has ended, the need for strong public health systems and effective responses hasn’t.

The CTC demonstrated what’s possible when disease surveillance is paired with community support, social services, technology, and a trained workforce. In the published paper, the study authors conclude that this kind of large-scale, integrated approach can be rapidly carried out and sustained, even during an unprecedented public health emergency.

PIH, which was founded in 1987, brought lessons from decades of global health work into the U.S.—and learned from the CTC work.  

“What I find so valuable about this work is seeing PIH’s global experience inform how we respond to public health challenges here in the U.S. This experience demonstrates that effective contact tracing is about more than identifying who has been exposed—it requires building trust with communities, understanding social determinants, and providing the tools people need to protect themselves and others,” says co-author and PIH CEO Sheila Davis. “It’s a powerful example of how we can learn across settings and bring lessons from our global work home.”