Simplifying Public Health Recommendations: Use of a Public CDC Chatbot During the COVID-19 Pandemic, 2022-2024

To help people with COVID-19 and their contacts quickly understand guidelines to prevent transmission, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed an interactive calculator that indicated whether and how long to stay home, get tested, wear face masks, and adopt other precautions. The CDC COVID-19 Calculator used a web-based chatbot format that mimicked a 2-person conversation. The calculator had the following design specifications: (1) reach an audience of people with COVID-19 (who tested positive or were symptomatic for COVID-19) and their close contacts and (2) provide an answer to the question "When can I leave home?" in less than 1 minute. To measure the use of the calculator, we analyzed the number of anonymous unique visitors and median visit time. The calculator had approximately 13.6 million visitors by March 1, 2024. The median visit time was 38 seconds, and approximately 65% of visits were via smartphones. The millions of unique visitors to the CDC COVID-19 Calculator demonstrated the usefulness of a conversational chatbot format to provide public health guidance. Future research should assess whether such tools influence behavior.