In recent years, technology has been used to monitor our health. Many people monitor their lives via smart devices, including wearables and apps for our phones.
But what if this technology could predict when you’re at risk of dying? Scientists believe they have discovered a way to do this.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign carried out a study entitled Population Analysis of Mortality: Predictive Models Based on Passive MonitorsThat was it Published in the journal PLOS Digital Health.
That’s an extremely scientific and fancy way of saying that they were trying to find out if they could predict mortality rates using the measures of physical activity from wrist-worn accelerometers.
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The researchers used a wearable device in this particular study, but they wanted to replicate as closely as possible what data could be obtained passively with a smartphone.
The study shows that smartphones are becoming more popular in high-income countries, and decreasing in low-income ones. This could lead to improved public health around the world if they can use smartphone data collected for population-level analysis.
The Study: A View
Using data from 100,000 participants that came from one week of wearing a wrist sensor, researchers designed a model that pared an individual’s acceleration and distance down into six-minute chunks. This is similar to the six-minute walk test doctors use to measure aerobic exercise capacity.
The researchers then developed a model to predict mortality risk based on their analysis. They were correct 76% of time in predicting death after one-year. Seventy-three percent of deaths predicted after five years were correct. These results were similar with a Study published in the Journals of GerontologyThis program used data that was hours long instead of minutes.
Bruce Schatz from the University of Illinois is the study author. He claims that this latest research may be more beneficial for public healthcare because it demonstrated the potential of passive monitoring technology. This technology allows for more analysis as detailed previously, and it is easier to use.
Imagine a world where your doctor has access to vital data about you and can potentially spot health risks like a heart attack. All this without having to make an appointment.
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There are ethical concerns when technology can be used to monitor the user. There are concerns about consenting to the transmission of information to health care providers and lack of technological literacy.
Privacy concerns also exist when it comes to large-scale health analyses that researchers are so excited about. “If you record all of the data, it’s true that people have characteristic walks and you can tell who the individual is,” Schatz told The Daily Beast. “But it’s totally possible to take part of the signal, which is good enough to do the vitals but completely disguises who the person is.”
Schatz stated that although these ethical questions are still speculations, they will be taken into consideration as the research progresses. His team has already examined sensors used in smartphones and cell phones. They will continue to work on smartphones that can be carried in pockets and not on the wrist.
“If you want to raise the general health of the entire population, this kind of project is really important,” Schatz concluded.