PocketCare: Tracking the Flu with Mobile Phones using Partial Observations of Proximity and Symptoms

Mobile phones provide a powerful sensing platform that researchers may adopt to understand proximity interactions among people and the diffusion, through these interactions, of diseases, behaviors, and opinions. However, it remains a challenge to track the proximity-based interactions of a whole community and then model the social diffusion of diseases and behaviors starting from the observations of a small fraction of the volunteer population. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that tries to connect together these sparse observations using a model of how individuals interact with each other and how social interactions happen in terms of a sequence of proximity interactions. We apply our approach to track the spreading of flu in the spatial-proximity network of a 3000-people university campus by mobilizing 300 volunteers from this population to monitor nearby mobile phones through Bluetooth scanning and to daily report flu symptoms about and around them. Our aim is to predict the likelihood for an individual to get flu based on how often her/his daily routine intersects with those of the volunteers. Thus, we use the daily routines of the volunteers to build a model of the volunteers as well as of the non-volunteers. Our results show that we can predict flu infection two weeks ahead of time with an average precision from 0.24 to 0.35 depending on the amount of information. This precision is six to nine times higher than with a random guess model. At the population level, we can predict infectious population in a two-week window with an r-squared value of 0.95 (a random-guess model obtains an r-squared value of 0.2). These results point to an innovative approach for tracking individuals who have interacted with people showing symptoms, allowing us to warn those in danger of infection and to inform health researchers about the progression of contact-induced diseases

A feasibility study of psychological strengths and well-being assessment in individuals living with recurrent depression

Current conceptualizations of mental illness focus on assessing psychopathology. A balanced approach would assess strengths that individuals bring to coping with illness. This study measures psychological strengths in individuals with recurrent depression, their coping strategies, and their perceptions of the usefulness of strengths assessment as a component of psychological assessment. Individuals (N = 112) with recurrent depression completed an online questionnaire measuring several psychological strengths, including gratitude, forgiveness, spirituality, and hope. Participants also described their use of coping strategies and their reaction to the utility of the two-continua model of mental health. A subset (n = 10) completed a follow-up telephone interview. Higher levels of gratitude, self-forgiveness, hope, and spirituality and lower levels of optimism were indicative of higher life satisfaction. Self-forgiveness, spirituality, and gratitude were predictors of happiness. Higher levels of hope and self-forgiveness predicted positive affect whereas lower levels of self-forgiveness predicted negative affect. Participants reported using a range of coping resources and indicated that they valued strengths assessment, perceiving the two-continua model of mental health as empowering. The researcher discusses implications for clinical practice

Predictors of the Mental Health of Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Nigeria

An individual’s ability to work productively, attain self-actualization, and make useful contribution to his or her community is a function of his or her mental health. Poor mental health has the capacity to interfere with an individual’s ability to function adequately across all areas of life. It has however been shown that the consequences of poor mental health in childhood extend into adulthood, which clearly indicates that a healthy mental development in childhood is of utmost importance. Children who are victims of circumstances stand the risk of being exposed to experiences that could negatively affect their mental health thereby robbing them of the opportunity of a healthy mental development in childhood and a healthy mental status in adulthood. This paper therefore looked at the mental health of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), the factors that can predict their mental health, and what to be done to improve their experiences, which can in turn, improve their mental healt

Effect of a 14-Day Mindfulness Intervention on Daily Desire Experiences and Desire Regulation

A growing body of research suggests that mindfulness, a receptive attentiveness to one’s present moment experiences, has the potential to adaptively regulate habitual behaviors. No prior study has tested the effect of mindfulness interventions on people’s daily desire experiences to inform the potential for adaptive desire regulation. The present exploratory randomized controlled trial examined the effect of a 14-day smartphone-based mindfulness intervention (versus a coping control intervention) on the frequency, intensity, duration, and enactment of everyday desires in 19 participants. The desire domains included basic need-based desires (i.e., for food, drink, sleep) and secondary desires (e.g., for sex, media, social interactions, work), assessed for 7 days pre- and post-intervention through ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Emotion data collected alongside, also through EMA, permitted examining the role of the mindfulness intervention in altering a potential link between experienced emotion (positive and negative) and desire. Results showed that intervention condition significantly predicted post-intervention desire frequency; those in the mindfulness condition experienced a higher frequency of desires post-training, and specifically, increased secondary desire frequency, but not basic desire frequency. Intervention condition did not predict the other desire outcomes (enactment, strength, or duration). Results also revealed that intervention significant moderated the association between positive emotion and overall desire frequency; those in the mindfulness condition experienced fewer desires when experiencing increased positive emotion, whereas there was no association between positive emotion and desire after coping training. Intervention condition did not moderate associations between positive emotions and other desire variables, or negative emotions and any desire variables

Addressing Obesity in Stevenage, Hertfordshire: A Consultation with Young People

Public Health England have identified that almost a quarter of children are overweight when they start primary school, which increases to a third when they leave in year 6 aged 10-11 years. This has implications for young peoples’ physical and mental health and also later in adult life. The newly launched NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) East of England is focusing on selected areas of health inequality and this includes neighbourhoods in Stevenage, Hertfordshire which have high rates of childhood obesity. In order to find out what young people think about these issues, Hertfordshire County Council and the University of Hertfordshire carried out a collaborative project in 2019. Hertfordshire County Council have adopted a Whole Systems approach to obesity and are keen to engage with young people in order to prioritise issues identified by them. The importance of ‘involving’ young people in shaping services has been widely documented. Two researchers met twice with 56 young people (from a range of schools) aged 16 years who were attending the National Citizen Service (NCS) scheme at a school in Stevenage in the summer holidays. A number of involvement activities were carried out during the sessions. The young people, with help from the researchers, facilitated their own informal discussion groups, using maps, flips charts, post-it notes and an anonymous suggestion box. The first session did not mention obesity but allowed open discussion about what it was like to live in Stevenage and the second session focussed more on the issue of ‘obesity and weight’. The young people were encouraged to find their own solutions and imagine if they “were in charge”. The four main themes that came from the sessions were; affordability, crime and anti-social behaviour, transport and places to go and eat. A number of solutions were suggested by the young people which included; healthy environment (e.g. cycle paths, street lights, regulation of shops), community approach (e.g. more affordable sports activities), schools (e.g. raise awareness, promote sport), focus on young people (e.g. activities for young people and healthy affordable eating outlets) and helping people maintain a healthy weight. The priorities identified by local young people and the wider issues they raised are important to take into consideration when shaping any intervention or public health initiative, especially when considering the wider determinants of health. Listening to the issues and solutions and using the language of young people is vital and young people should be included in co-designing any services that are aimed at them. Involving local young people who know an area and who can identify important issues is vital for any successful public health intervention

Estimating HIV Medication Adherence and Persistence: Two Instruments for Clinical and Research Use

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) requires lifelong daily oral therapy. While patient characteristics associated with suboptimal ART adherence and persistence have been described in cohorts of HIV-infected persons, these factors are poor predictors of individual medication taking behaviors. We aimed to create and test instruments for the estimation of future ART adherence and persistence for clinical and research applications. Following formative work, a battery of 148 items broadly related to HIV infection and treatment was developed and administered to 181 HIV-infected patients. ART adherence and persistence were assessed using electronic monitoring for 3 months. Perceived confidence in medication taking and self-reported barriers to adherence were strongest in predicting non-adherence over time. Barriers to adherence (e.g., affordability, scheduling) were the strongest predictors of non-adherence, as well as 3- and 7-day non-persistence. A ten-item battery for prediction of these outcomes (www.med.unc.edu/ncaidstraining/adherence/for-providers) and a 30-item battery reflective of underlying psychological constructs can help identify and study individuals at risk for suboptimal ART adherence and persistence

Analyzing the Language of Food on Social Media

We investigate the predictive power behind the language of food on social media. We collect a corpus of over three million food-related posts from Twitter and demonstrate that many latent population characteristics can be directly predicted from this data: overweight rate, diabetes rate, political leaning, and home geographical location of authors. For all tasks, our language-based models significantly outperform the majority-class baselines. Performance is further improved with more complex natural language processing, such as topic modeling. We analyze which textual features have most predictive power for these datasets, providing insight into the connections between the language of food, geographic locale, and community characteristics. Lastly, we design and implement an online system for real-time query and visualization of the dataset. Visualization tools, such as geo-referenced heatmaps, semantics-preserving wordclouds and temporal histograms, allow us to discover more complex, global patterns mirrored in the language of food.Comment: An extended abstract of this paper will appear in IEEE Big Data 201

Application of Smartphone Technology in the Management and Treatment of Mental Illnesses

Abstract: Background: Mental illness continues to be a significant Public Health problem and the innovative use of technology to improve the treatment of mental illnesses holds great public health relevance. Over the past decade telecommunications technology has been used to increase access to and improve the quality of mental health care. There is current evidence that the use of landline and cellular telephones, computer-assisted therapy, and videoconferencing can be effective in improving treatment outcomes. Smartphones, as the newest development in communications technology, offer a new opportunity to improve mental health care through their versatile nature to perform a variety of functions. Methods: A critical literature review was performed to examine the potential of smartphones to increase access to mental health care, reduce barriers to care, and improve patient treatment outcomes. The review was performed by searching several electronic databases using a combination of keywords related to smartphones and mental health interventions using mobile devices. Literature concerning the use of cell phones, handheld computers, and smartphones to improve access to mental health care and improve treatment outcomes was identified.Results: The majority of studies identified were feasibility and pilot studies on patients with a variety of diagnosed mental illnesses using cell phones and PDAs. Authors report that most study participants, with some exceptions, were capable of using a mobile device and found them acceptable to use. Few studies extensively measured treatment outcomes and instead reported preliminary results and presented case illustrations. Studies which used smartphones successfully used them collect data on patients and deliver multimedia interventions. Discussion: The current literature offers encouraging evidence for the use of smartphones to improve mental health care but also reflects the lack of research conducted using smartphones. Studies which examine care provider use of smartphones to improve care is encouraging but has limited generalizability to mental health care. The feasibility of patient use of smartphones is also encouraging, but questions remain about feasibility in some sub-populations, particularly schizophrenia patients. Pilot testing of mobile devices and applications can greatly increase the feasibility of using smartphones in mental health care. Patients who are unfamiliar with smartphones will likely need initial training and support in their use. Conclusion: The literature identified several ways in which smartphones can increase access to care, reduce barriers, and improve treatment outcomes. Study results were encouraging but scientifically weak. Future studies are needed replicating results of studies using cell phones and PDAs on smartphones. Larger and higher quality studies are needed to examine the feasibility, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of smartphones to deliver multiple component interventions that improve access to mental health care and improve treatment outcomes

F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America, 2006

Examines national and state obesity rates and government policies. Offers recommendations to check the obesity crisis, including a twenty-step action plan for addressing the healthcare burdens and financial costs associated with the epidemic