Abstract
BackgroundThe ubiquity of mobile phones and increasing use of wearable fitness trackers offer a wide-ranging window into people’s health and well-being. There are clear advantages in using remote monitoring technologies to gain an insight into health, particularly under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.ObjectiveCovid Collab is a crowdsourced study that was set up to investigate the feasibility of identifying, monitoring, and understanding the stratification of SARS-CoV-2 infection and recovery through remote monitoring technologies. Additionally, we will assess the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated social measures on people’s behavior, physical health, and mental well-being.MethodsParticipants will remotely enroll in the study through the Mass Science app to donate historic and prospective mobile phone data, fitness tracking wearable data, and regular COVID-19–related and mental health–related survey data. The data collection period will cover a continuous period (ie, both before and after any reported infections), so that comparisons to a participant’s own baseline can be made. We plan to carry out analyses in several areas, which will cover symptomatology; risk factors; the machine learning–based classification of illness; and trajectories of recovery, mental well-being, and activity.ResultsAs of June 2021, there are over 17,000 participants—largely from the United Kingdom—and enrollment is ongoing.ConclusionsThis paper introduces a crowdsourced study that will include remotely enrolled participants to record mobile health data throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The data collected may help researchers investigate a variety of areas, including COVID-19 progression; mental well-being during the pandemic; and the adherence of remote, digitally enrolled participants.International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)DERR1-10.2196/32587
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about widespread and drastic changes to people’s lives, work, and health resulting from infection by SARS-CoV-2 as well as the public health and social measures (PHSMs) that were introduced to limit the disease
We aim to identify risk factors and causes of COVID-19, long COVID, and the severity of illness
The Covid Collab study began in April 2020, and large-scale recruitment began in earnest in June 2020
Summary
BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has brought about widespread and drastic changes to people’s lives, work, and health resulting from infection by SARS-CoV-2 as well as the public health and social measures (PHSMs) that were introduced to limit the disease. Many people are resilient to the conditions imposed by the pandemic, previous instances of disease outbreaks [1] and quarantines [2] have been associated with negative psychological outcomes. We will assess the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated social measures on people’s behavior, physical health, and mental well-being. Methods: Participants will remotely enroll in the study through the Mass Science app to donate historic and prospective mobile phone data, fitness tracking wearable data, and regular COVID-19–related and mental health–related survey data. Conclusions: This paper introduces a crowdsourced study that will include remotely enrolled participants to record mobile health data throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The data collected may help researchers investigate a variety of areas, including COVID-19 progression; mental well-being during the pandemic; and the adherence of remote, digitally enrolled participants.
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