Improvements to a mobile app for community noise and assessment data collection

Abstract

A mobile phone application was developed to collection health history, real time noise levels and participants' perceptions. The goal of this application is to collect data that can directly link community response, noise levels and community health from a large number of participants. This will help identify where noise is causing issues related to physical and mental health on a community scale. In order to identify these effects at a community level large numbers of responses are critical. Ease of use is essential to ensure that participants remain willing to participate in the study and continue to submit samples. This needs to be balanced with the usefulness of the data collected by the public. Previously, a beta version of the app was deployed to evaluate the useability and effectiveness of data collection. Several issues with the data collection were identified and improvements to the app were implemented. Evaluation of the data and data visualization options will be presented using the most recent version of the application.