Towards Evidence Based M-Health Application Design in Cancer Patient Healthy Lifestyle Interventions

Cancer is one of the most prevalent diseases in Europe and the world. Significant correlations between dietary habits and cancer incidence and mortality have been confirmed by the literature. Physical activity habits are also directly implicated in the incidence of cancer. Lifestyle behaviour change may be benefited by using mobile technology to deliver health behaviour interventions. M-Health offers a promising cost-efficient approach to deliver en-masse interventions. Smartphone apps with constructs such as gamification and personalized have shown potential for helping individuals lose weight and maintain healthy lifestyle habits. However, evidence-based content and theory-based strategies have not been incorporated by those apps systematically yet. The aim of the current work is to put the foundations for a methodologically rigorous exploration of wellness/health intervention literature/app landscape towards detailed design specifications for connected health m-apps. In this context, both the overall work plan is described as well as the details for the significant steps of application space and literature space review. Both strategies for research and initial outcomes of it are presented. The expected evidence based design process for patient centered health and wellness interventions is going to be the primary input in the implementation process of upcoming patient centered health/wellness m-health interventions.ENJECT COST-STSM-ECOST-STSM-TD1405-220216-07045

CoachAI: A Conversational Agent Assisted Health Coaching Platform

Poor lifestyle represents a health risk factor and is the leading cause of morbidity and chronic conditions. The impact of poor lifestyle can be significantly altered by individual behavior change. Although the current shift in healthcare towards a long lasting modifiable behavior, however, with increasing caregiver workload and individuals' continuous needs of care, there is a need to ease caregiver's work while ensuring continuous interaction with users. This paper describes the design and validation of CoachAI, a conversational agent assisted health coaching system to support health intervention delivery to individuals and groups. CoachAI instantiates a text based healthcare chatbot system that bridges the remote human coach and the users. This research provides three main contributions to the preventive healthcare and healthy lifestyle promotion: (1) it presents the conversational agent to aid the caregiver; (2) it aims to decrease caregiver's workload and enhance care given to users, by handling (automating) repetitive caregiver tasks; and (3) it presents a domain independent mobile health conversational agent for health intervention delivery. We will discuss our approach and analyze the results of a one month validation study on physical activity, healthy diet and stress management

360 Quantified Self

Wearable devices with a wide range of sensors have contributed to the rise of the Quantified Self movement, where individuals log everything ranging from the number of steps they have taken, to their heart rate, to their sleeping patterns. Sensors do not, however, typically sense the social and ambient environment of the users, such as general life style attributes or information about their social network. This means that the users themselves, and the medical practitioners, privy to the wearable sensor data, only have a narrow view of the individual, limited mainly to certain aspects of their physical condition. In this paper we describe a number of use cases for how social media can be used to complement the check-up data and those from sensors to gain a more holistic view on individuals' health, a perspective we call the 360 Quantified Self. Health-related information can be obtained from sources as diverse as food photo sharing, location check-ins, or profile pictures. Additionally, information from a person's ego network can shed light on the social dimension of wellbeing which is widely acknowledged to be of utmost importance, even though they are currently rarely used for medical diagnosis. We articulate a long-term vision describing the desirable list of technical advances and variety of data to achieve an integrated system encompassing Electronic Health Records (EHR), data from wearable devices, alongside information derived from social media data.Comment: QCRI Technical Repor

mHealth Research Applied to Regulated and Unregulated Behavioral Health Sciences

Behavioral scientists are developing new methods and frameworks that leverage mobile health technologies to optimize individual level behavior change. Pervasive sensors and mobile apps allow researchers to passively observe human behaviors “in the wild” 24/7 which supports delivery of personalized interventions in the real-world environment. This is all possible because these technologies contain an incredible array of sensors that allow applications to constantly record user location and can contextualize current environmental conditions through barometers, thermometers, and ambient light sensors and can also capture audio and video of the user and their surroundings through multiple integrated high-definition cameras and microphones. These tools are a game changer in behavioral health research and, not surprisingly, introduce new ethical, regulatory/legal and social implications described in this article

Mobile, wearable and ingestible health technologies : towards a critical research agenda

In this article, we review critical research on mobile and wearable health technologies focused on the promotion of ‘healthy lifestyles’. We begin by discussing key governmental and policy interests which indicate a shift towards greater digital integration in health care. Subsequently, we review relevant research literature, which highlights concerns about inclusion, social justice, and ownership of mobile health data, which we argue, provoke a series of key sociological questions that are in need of additional investigation. We examine the expansion of what counts as health data, as a basis for advocating the need for greater research into this area. Finally, we consider how digital devices raise questions about the reconfiguration of relationships, behaviours, and concepts of individuality

Redescribing Health Privacy: The Importance of Health Policy

Current conversations about health information policy often tend to be based on three broad assumptions. First, many perceive a tension between regulation and innovation. We often hear that privacy regulations are keeping researchers, companies, and providers from aggregating the data they need to promote innovation. Second, aggregation of fragmented data is seen as a threat to its proper regulation, creating the risk of breaches and other misuse. Third, a prime directive for technicians and policymakers is to give patients ever more granular methods of control over data. This article questions and complicates those assumptions, which I deem (respectively) the Privacy Threat to Research, the Aggregation Threat to Privacy, and the Control Solution. This article is also intended to enrich our concepts of “fragmentation” and “integration” in health care. There is a good deal of sloganeering around “firewalls” and “vertical integration” as idealized implementations of “fragmentation” and “integration” (respective). The problem, though, is that terms like these (as well as “disruption”) are insufficiently normative to guide large-scale health system change. They describe, but they do not adequately prescribe. By examining those instances where: a) regulation promotes innovation, and b) increasing (some kinds of) availability of data actually enhances security, confidentiality, and privacy protections, this article attempts to give a richer account of the ethics of fragmentation and integration in the U.S. health care system. But, it also has a darker side, highlighting the inevitable conflicts of values created in a “reputation society” driven by stigmatizing social sorting systems. Personal data control may exacerbate social inequalities. Data aggregation may increase both our powers of research and our vulnerability to breach. The health data policymaking landscape of the next decade will feature a series of intractable conflicts between these important social values

A new track for technology: Can ICT take care for healthier lifestyles?

The paper takes a look on potential contribution of Information and Communication Technologies to abate public health challenges caused by demographics and lifestyle. From the current convergence of mhealth, and sport market products emerge targeting normal athletes to control their training in a quantified manner. The resulting feedback and transparency foster a healthier lifestyle. These products and services help overcome limitations to innovation typical to the health care market. The paper is based on research by the European Commission's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies on Integrated Personal Health/Care services. --eHealth,Integrated Personal Health/Care services,sport,training,lifestyle related disease,innovation

Building the case for actionable ethics in digital health research supported by artificial intelligence

The digital revolution is disrupting the ways in which health research is conducted, and subsequently, changing healthcare. Direct-to-consumer wellness products and mobile apps, pervasive sensor technologies and access to social network data offer exciting opportunities for researchers to passively observe and/or track patients ‘in the wild’ and 24/7. The volume of granular personal health data gathered using these technologies is unprecedented, and is increasingly leveraged to inform personalized health promotion and disease treatment interventions. The use of artificial intelligence in the health sector is also increasing. Although rich with potential, the digital health ecosystem presents new ethical challenges for those making decisions about the selection, testing, implementation and evaluation of technologies for use in healthcare. As the ‘Wild West’ of digital health research unfolds, it is important to recognize who is involved, and identify how each party can and should take responsibility to advance the ethical practices of this work. While not a comprehensive review, we describe the landscape, identify gaps to be addressed, and offer recommendations as to how stakeholders can and should take responsibility to advance socially responsible digital health research

Digital Support to Guide Physical Activity - Augmented Daily Routines for Young Elderly

New EU-level studies show that EU is “turning increasingly grey” and the old-age de-pendency ratio increases steadily during the next three decades. There is a growing, serious problem – people live longer lives but they are in worse shape during their final years and need growing support from health care resources. There is need for a new focus on prevention and on turning the development. The “young elderly” (the 60-75 years old age group) should adopt physical activity (PA) programs and make them part of their everyday routines. The learning processes get started through interventions with digital wellness services. DigitalWells is a research and development program to acti-vate 1000 young elderly to select and use PA programs. The goal is to keep the young elderly in better shape for their senior years (75+) and to contribute to significant reduc-tions in the growth of elderly health and social care costs