ANN ARBOR, Mich.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–New research enabled by CareEvolution’s research platform indicates commercially available wearable devices show promise for monitoring and forecasting population changes in COVID-19 activity and infection rates up to 12 days earlier than CDC data alone. This approach of using wearable devices for monitoring infection rates complements existing methods for tracking viral illnesses, including medical appointments, laboratory test results, and wastewater testing by providing an early signal for changes in disease prevalence.
These data come from DETECT, a collaborative study launched at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic by Scripps Research in partnership with CareEvolution and The Rockefeller Foundation. The study utilizes CareEvolution’s digital clinical trial and research platform, MyDataHelps™, through which researchers collected resting heart rate and step count from wearable devices and self-reported data (e.g., test results, symptoms, and demographic information) from thousands of participants across the United States.
On September 22, Lancet Digital Health published a study based on DETECT data, showing that wearables can identify variations in individual data, perhaps before the participant experiences any symptoms, providing an early indication of viral infection. The researchers showed that tracking changes in this sensor data can significantly improve predictions for the seven-day moving average of COVID-19…
