Scripps Turns to mHealth Wearables to Help Plot Coronavirus Growth

Scripps researchers are launching a new study to measure the value of mHealth wearables in detecting the emergence of viral outbreaks like the Coronavirus.

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The San Diego-based Scripps Research Translational Institute is launching the national project – called DETECT – to gather data from smartwatches and activity trackers to analyze how activity, heart rate, sleep patterns and other connected health data can be integrated into a public health surveillance program. Participants are asked to upload their data through the MyDataHelps app.

"In light of the ongoing flu season and the global pandemic of COVID-19, we see enormous opportunity to enhance disease tracking for improved population health,” Jennifer Radin, PhD, an SRTI epidemiologist who is leading the study, said in a press release issued today. “One way to do this is to leverage and analyze the rich health data that’s already being collected by the millions of Americans who regularly use wearable devices.”

Researchers are building off of the momentum of an earlier study, unveiled in January, which used data from roughly 50,000 Fitbit users to plot outbreaks of seasonal respiratory infections like the flu.

In that study, researchers found they could identify and possibly even anticipate an outbreak by the activities of Fitbit users who became sick. People who develop the flu, they noted, tend to have an elevated RHR, sleep more and move around less.

Now they’re pivoting to take on the Coronavirus pandemic, and relying on the fact that one out of every five Americans now uses a wearable or mHealth app.

“Scripps Research’s prior work has demonstrated that passively collected data from consumer-grade wearable technologies can be not only a valuable marker of recent and current flu-like illnesses, but a promising predictor of an impending illness that may not be perceived by the individual yet,” Vik Kheterpal, MD, Principal at CareEvolution, a digital health company partnering with SRTI in the study, said in the press release. “We believe our partnership with Scripps Research will help make this innovative model the norm of our digital age, improving individual health and the public response to viral illnesses, and ultimately, reducing the massive human toll of the annual flu season and other outbreaks.”

The study aims to draw in users of many of the top consumer-facing digital health devices, including Fitbit, Apple, Amazon and Garmin.

“We’ve known for more than a decade that wearables like Fitbit smartwatches and trackers can help people improve their health and wellness, and have recently seen the potential of Fitbit data to predict influenza-like illness outbreaks in real time," Fitbit Co-founder and CEO James Park said in the press release. “Our wearables track key health metrics like heart rate, resting heart rate, heart rate variability and sleep patterns, and these indicators across large populations can help alert health officials to potential outbreaks. With the new DETECT study, we’re encouraged to see researchers and consumers working together to validate how health data from wearables can be used as a powerful public health tool for early illness detection, enhancing the ability to track and respond to disease outbreaks like COVID-19 in the future.”

Through the telemedicine platform, SRTI will also be able to push the latest information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to participants.