Abstract
Smoking is the biggest avoidable health risk, causing millions of deaths per year worldwide. Persuasive applications are those designed to change a person’s behavior, usually in a specific way. Several mobile phone applications and messaging systems have been used to promote smoking cessation. However, most interventions use participants’ self-reports to track cigarette consumption and avoidance, which may not be accurate or objective. Previous proposals have used sensors to track hand movements and other contextual data to detect smoking or have used devices to detect smoke or breath carbon monoxide. This article proposes a low-cost wearable device that may be worn in a front shirt pocket or clipped to clothing to detect smoke and secondhand smoke. Furthermore, the device is integrated into a persuasive application to promote smoking cessation. The device was evaluated through an experiment to detect whether it may detect direct, passive, and no smoking conditions. The results are promising and may help improve tracking of cigarettes in persuasive applications.
Highlights
In the United States, approximately 15.5% of adults are smokers.[1]
Smoking is the biggest avoidable health risk,[2] and it is related to a number of diseases, for example, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and pulmonary diseases, with serious deleterious effects, and it is estimated that worldwide, direct smoking and secondhand smoking caused over seven million deaths in 20163 and are responsible for billions of dollars in healthcare costs every year.[4]
This article aims to answer the following research question: is a low-cost smoke sensor able to differentiate between no smoking, secondhand smoking, and direct smoking? To answer this question, we developed an Arduino-based low-cost smoke sensor that is paired with a persuasive application to automatically track how many cigarettes a person has smoked
Summary
In the United States, approximately 15.5% of adults are smokers.[1]. Smoking is the biggest avoidable health risk,[2] and it is related to a number of diseases, for example, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and pulmonary diseases, with serious deleterious effects, and it is estimated that worldwide, direct smoking and secondhand smoking caused over seven million deaths in 20163 and are responsible for billions of dollars in healthcare costs every year.[4]. Even though no amount of cigarette smoking is considered to be safe, lowering consumption decreases. International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks cardiovascular disease risk.[8] There is a wealth of research about smoking cessation programs and initiatives: for example, picture warnings, ad bans, and increased taxes have been shown to reduce tobacco use.[9] smokers tend to overestimate how likely they are to quit smoking.[10] Studies have reported that 68% of current smokers intend to stop smoking—only a third of those who try to stop smoking use evidence-based cessation methods and less than 10% of smokers are successful.[11]
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