Show HN: Spot Covid-19 outbreaks with crowdsourced wearable device data?

3 points

6 years ago

COVID-19 testing -- or the lack thereof -- has been a crucial part of the unfolding story of the pandemic over the last few months. Until recently in the U.S., we've mostly been flying blind, because without much testing, we haven't known for sure how many people are infected.

With your help, the digital medicine group at Scripps Research Translational Institute -- we're a non-profit academic institution in San Diego -- would like to explore a different way of spotting outbreaks of viral illness, using crowdsourced data from wearable devices like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin, and others.

Our group recently published a study [1] that showed we could improve predictions of flu outbreaks by analyzing heart rate and sleep data from thousands of Fitbit users.

We've just launched a new study -- https://detectstudy.org -- with the goal of someday using similarly crowdsourced wearable data to spot outbreaks of viral illness, including COVID-19, long before people start calling their doctor or showing up at the emergency room.

To accomplish that, we're going to need a huge number of volunteers for the DETECT study. There's no cost to participate, and all you need to do is download the free MyDataHelps app (from our partner, CareEvolution) for iOS or Android. With your permission, the app will automatically share heart rate and activity data with our researchers. [2]

Watching the grim news these days, it's hard to know how to help. We're hoping that the DETECT study is one small way that anyone with a wearable can pitch in.

https://detectstudy.org

Thanks, Danny

P.S. This blog post has more info: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/pivoting-health-resea...

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7...

[2] Anything you share with us will be held in the strictest confidence, and we will remove personally identifying details before the data are analyzed.