Hearts and Politics: Metrics for Tracking Biorhythm Changes during Brexit and Trump

Our internal experience of time reflects what is going in the world around us. Our body's natural rhythms get disrupted for a variety of external factors, including exposure to collective events. We collect readings of steps, sleep, and heart rates from 11K users of health tracking devices in London and San Francisco. We introduce measures to quantify changes in not only volume of these three bio-signals (as previous research has done) but also synchronicity and periodicity, and we empirically assess how strong those variations are, compared to random expectation, during four major events: Christmas, New Year's Eve, Brexit, and the US presidential election of 2016 (Donald Trump's election). While Christmas and New Year's eve are associated with short-term effects, Brexit and Trump's election are associated with longer-term disruptions. Our results promise to inform the design of new ways of monitoring population health at scale.Comment: 5 page

Tailored support may be required to reduce the impact of the infertility journey on mental health, relationships and daily lives of infertile patients and partners to infertile patients

Research question What is the psychological impact of infertility on infertile patients and partners of infertile patients? Design This online, international, quantitative survey assessed the impact of infertility on mental health, relationships and daily activities for 1944 respondents. Respondents were male or female infertile patients (n = 1037) or partners to infertile patients (n = 907; not necessarily partners of the patient sample) and were recruited at different stages of the treatment journey. Results The most common emotions were ‘sadness’ at infertility diagnosis and ‘anxiety’ during treatment. Emotions differed in nature and intensity throughout the journey. Envy of others who achieved pregnancy was frequently reported by women. More than half of respondents (60.4%; n = 1174) perceived the infertility journey to have impacted their mental health, and 44.1% (n = 857) of respondents sought mental health support. More patients reported mental health impacts (70.1%, n = 727) than partners (49.3%, n = 447). One in three respondents indicated that their relationship had suffered due to the infertility diagnosis. Of these respondents, 55.0% (n = 409) strongly agreed that infertility caused an emotional strain. Patients more often than partners reported a detrimental impact on daily activities. Respondents most commonly agreed with statements regarding an ‘effect on work–life balance’. Conclusion Treatment journey stages are defined by their impact profile, which differs between infertile patients and partners of infertile patients. Negative impacts are diverse (mental health, relational, daily activities). There was disparity between the number of respondents reporting mental health issues and the number seeking mental health support. This indicates the need for support services tailored to different treatment stages

Patient stratification and identification of adverse event correlations in the space of 1190 drug related adverse events

Purpose: New pharmacovigilance methods are needed as a consequence of the morbidity caused by drugs. We exploit fine-grained drug related adverse event information extracted by text mining from electronic medical records (EMRs) to stratify patients based on their adverse events and to determine adverse event co-occurrences. Methods: We analyzed the similarity of adverse event profiles of 2347 patients extracted from EMRs from a mental health center in Denmark. The patients were clustered based on their adverse event profiles and the similarities were presented as a network. The set of adverse events in each main patient cluster was evaluated. Co-occurrences of adverse events in patients (p-value < 0.01) were identified and presented as well. Results: We found that each cluster of patients typically had a most distinguishing adverse event. Examination of the co-occurrences of adverse events in patients led to the identification of potentially interesting adverse event correlations that may be further investigated as well as provide further patient stratification opportunities. Conclusions: We have demonstrated the feasibility of a novel approach in pharmacovigilance to stratify patients based on fine-grained adverse event profiles, which also makes it possible to identify adverse event correlations. Used on larger data sets, this data-driven method has the potential to reveal unknown patterns concerning adverse event occurrences

Barriers and factors associated with significant delays to initial consultation and treatment for infertile patients and partners to infertile patients.

Research Question What are the key drivers and barriers for infertile patients and their partners to see an infertility specialist Design An online, international, 30-minute quantitative survey collected data from 1,944 respondents from nine countries. Respondents were infertile patients (n=1,037) or partners to infertile patients (n=907; but not necessarily partners of the patient sample), at different stages of the treatment journey. Results The overall average times were 3.2 years to receiving a medical infertility diagnosis, 2.0 years attempting to achieve pregnancy without assistance before treatment, and 1.6 years of treatment before successful respondents achieved pregnancy. The most common driver for considering treatment after a consultation (n=1,025) was an equal desire within the couple to have a child (40.8%). Of partners (n=356), 27.3% reported that transparency of information from healthcare professionals about treatment expectations was important. A significantly higher proportion of respondents seeking treatment reported that healthcare professionals offered supportive services (61.0%) and mental health services (62.0%) than the 207 respondents who did not seek treatment (32.0% and 37.0%, respectively; p<0.001). Perceived cost was the most commonly reported barrier for respondents not seeking a consultation (37.5% of n=352) or treatment (42.0% of n=207). Of the 95 respondents who discontinued treatment, 34.7% discontinued due to financial impact. Conclusion Respondents reported significant delays to seeking treatment, likely negatively impacting chances of achieving pregnancy. Motivational coherence within couples was a key driver and cost of treatment was the main barrier. Reported offerings of supportive services by healthcare professionals were highly positively correlated to treatment journey continuation

A Personalized Physical Activity Program With Activity Trackers and a Mobile Phone App for Patients With Metastatic Breast Cancer: Protocol for a Single-Arm Feasibility Trial

International audienc

Feasibility and health benefits of an individualized physical activity intervention in women with metastatic breast cancer: results of the ABLE single-arm Trial study

International audienc