Collecting health-related data: Will older adults share these with researchers interested in understanding late life health?

Not only young, but more and more older adults track activity information using a number of commercially available sensors, be it those embedded in many of today’s smartphones or those that can be worn on the wrist or hip. In a recent study, 1’000 adults aged 50 and older were interviewed about the use of health-related tracking devices and their willingness to share their data for research purposes.

Many people believe that the information collected with these so-called wearables can help in monitoring one’s daily life routines and highlight areas in which changes (i.e., be more active; increase the diversity of activities) might be a good idea. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also incorporated the necessity to describe a person’s daily life activities in a person’s daily life environments as part of a more complete understanding of health and healthy aging. 

In a recent study, researchers from the University of Zurich - also a partner in the NESTORE project - interviewed more than 1’000 adults aged 50 and older to survey their use of health-related tracking devices and their willingness to share the collected tracking data with researchers for them to better understand differences between adults in activity patterns and profiles and how these may be linked with diverse health- and quality of life-related outcomes. For researchers, a large number of population-based information (so-called big data) could be combined with person-specific (small data) to improve tailored predictions on an individual basis, hopefully leading to better health outcomes. 

In their survey, Seifert, Christen, and Martin (2018) asked their participants about their use of activity trackers (i.e., wristbands), smartwatches for physical activity tracking, as well as any smartphone or tablet application used with the intention of tracking physical activity, nutritional habits, body weight, medication intake or general well-being. Results indicated that 43.3% of participants used one or more mobile devices, and 27.6% were using these with the intention to track health or activity data. Tracking for health was most common among technology aficionados, regular exercisers and those with lower satisfaction with their health. Second, about half of the participants reported their willingness to share these data with researchers. 

The findings of this and other research provides an important context in which the NESTORE co-design and co-development is underway. As a matter of fact, the NESTORE system will also provide a tracking system for a wider range of health-related behaviours and activities in daily life, an opportunity to share those data among the other NESTORE users and with one’s personal social circle. One additional sharing outlet may be to offer the opportunity to share those data with researchers alike.