Fitness, nutrition, health, hobbies – all these areas of life are nowadays subject to data collection and analysis via smartphone apps and fitness trackers. Different software services and gadgets are meant to help increasing both the physical and mental life quality. Nonetheless, the gathered data is usually extremely heterogeneous, thus only representing one aspect of the overall wellbeing. This creates the risk of missing important connections between different areas of health. The European research project CrowdHEALTH works on solving this issue with an AI-based platform for holistic health data.
The aim of the project is to conduct significant analysis with high-quality holistic data. This means data from all areas of personal wellbeing, including information on the medical health, nutrition, fitness as well as social activities and habits. In order to collect this Holistic Health Record (HHR), the research department for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) of the German Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) developed a web app that is now entering its test phase.
Safe data by registration with a pseudonym
The holistic data is collected by a mobile-adaptive web app and serves as the basis for subsequent analysis with the implementation of artificial intelligence. Using the app is possible with an untraceable pseudonym. Only an email address is required for the registration. The address is then saved with a non-reversible one-way encryption and is only needed for the login. All further input is then only linked to the pseudonym. Apart from the direct entering of the holistic health data, the web app can also be connected with the fitness tracker “FitBit”, allowing a direct transfer of the measured results from the wristband to the web app.
The test phase of the new web app of the research department for Cyber-Physical Systems led by Prof. Dr. Rolf Drechsler is planned for roughly six months. The goal of the test phase is a semantic database with which the AI based analysis procedures can be tested on vast, mathematically-logic data. In addition, test subjects are free to give feedback on the functionality and user friendliness of the web app. Thus, the subjects not only support the health research, but also help designing the most efficient implementation of the project CrowdHEALTH.
An international consortium works towards the health of tomorrow
The collected results from the investigation of complex correlations - for example between shopping habits, sport activities and social interactions of the test subjects - are meant to help decision makers all over Europe. This includes the institutions of the European Union as well as scientific research in the area of public health, authorities, schools and insurances.
The project CrowdHEALTH is part of the EU funding programme for research and innovation Horizon 2020 and embodies an important step towards holistic health. Five pilot studies are carried out by the 20 institutions cooperating in the consortium all over Europe. The study for the web app of the DFKI is the only one focusing specifically on nutrition and activities.
Further information and the option to register can be found here:
Project CrowdHEALTH: https://www.crowdhealth.eu/
Registration for the web app: https://ch.baall.de
DFKI Contact:
Dr.-Ing. Serge Autexier
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
Cyber-Physical Systems
Phone: +49 421 218 59834
serge.autexier@dfki.de
DFKI Press Contact:
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
Corporate Communications Bremen
Phone: +49 421 178 45 4180
uk-hb@dfki.de
