Abstract
Physical and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic is typically assessed via surveys, which might make it difficult to conduct longitudinal studies and might lead to data suffering from recall bias. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) driven smartphone apps can help alleviate such issues, allowing for in situ recordings. Implementing such an app is not trivial, necessitates strict regulatory and legal requirements, and requires short development cycles to appropriately react to abrupt changes in the pandemic. Based on an existing app framework, we developed Corona Health, an app that serves as a platform for deploying questionnaire-based studies in combination with recordings of mobile sensors. In this paper, we present the technical details of Corona Health and provide first insights into the collected data. Through collaborative efforts from experts from public health, medicine, psychology, and computer science, we released Corona Health publicly on Google Play and the Apple App Store (in July 2020) in eight languages and attracted 7290 installations so far. Currently, five studies related to physical and mental well-being are deployed and 17,241 questionnaires have been filled out. Corona Health proves to be a viable tool for conducting research related to the COVID-19 pandemic and can serve as a blueprint for future EMA-based studies. The data we collected will substantially improve our knowledge on mental and physical health states, traits and trajectories as well as its risk and protective factors over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and its diverse prevention measures.
Highlights
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that affects public health, and the measures taken in trying to contain the spread of the virus, such as lockdowns, home office, and further social distancing measures
Corona Health collects mobile sensing data that are relevant in the context of conducing research related to the physical and mental well-being of the population during the COVID-19 pandemic
The entire system has been validated on the basis of the IEC 62304 and IEC 82304 standards as well as the GAMP 5 regulations [53]. These standards are the relevant parts of the medical device regulation (MDR) for implementing software that is compliant with the Medical Device Regulation (MDR)
Summary
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it is the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that affects public health, and the measures taken in trying to contain the spread of the virus, such as lockdowns, home office, and further social distancing measures. Developing an app for tracking the mental and physical health of the population is challenging. The app allows working in an interdisciplinary manner with experts from different fields to deploy different questionnaires and includes mobile sensing of sensor data and smartphone usage statistics. Its finalization within 3 months shows that the TrackYourHealth platform including its established procedures are proper instruments to develop study- and sensor-based mHealth apps. Introduction of the Corona Health app platform and its technical details; Presentation of statistics about data collected with Corona Health from 27 July 2020 to. We present the app’s architecture and its features, illustrate the database, the data exchange between app and backend, detail the study procedure (user journey), and give insights into the mobile sensing features.
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