Can sleep app data help identify trends in respiratory disease in the UK?

Can sleep app data help identify trends in respiratory disease in the UK?
Image: ©Jevtic | iStock

Government-backed study investigates whether anonymized sleep app data can help identify early trends in respiratory illnesses in the UK

A new UK government-backed study is looking at whether anonymised sleep data, such as changes in breathing patterns and sleep disturbances, could complement public health surveillance and improve understanding at a population level. respiratory disease In England.

Research structure

The study, which will be carried out over three years, will analyze anonymised, privacy-protected data collected from the Sleep Cycle app between January 2023 and January 2026, as well as data from Sleep Cycle’s Cough Radar, a public visualization tool that aggregates trends in nighttime cough intensity across different regions of England.

The study will evaluate whether sleep app signals can provide early insight into trends in respiratory illnesses such as influenza and respiratory syncytial virus.

The researchers will examine whether sleep-based signals, such as night-time cough patterns, match current hospitalization data in the UK and surveillance indicators for early detection of rising infection rates.

This is the first assessment of sleep app data for national epidemiological monitoring by UKHSA.

UKHSA Chief Data Officer Professor Stephen Reilly; “As a government agency, we are always exploring how new technologies, such as AI, can be used to complement our existing surveillance systems, and this innovative partnership represents a potentially important step in integrating new data streams into national health information.”

If successful, these insights could help strengthen early warning systems for respiratory infections in the UK. ”

Erik Jivmark, CEO of Sleep Cycle, said: “Sleep is one of the most consistent passive windows into human health. With over 3 billion nights in our library from 180 countries, we are excited to be working with UKHSA to determine if sleep can reveal meaningful population-level signals that provide early visibility into breathing trends.”

Our partnership with UKHSA reflects the strength of the nighttime breathing data we collect and our commitment to helping public health agencies continue to build proactive insights. ”

The potential of sleep data in public health surveillance

traditional disease monitoring Data is required from a variety of systems, including laboratories and hospitals. This often involves collecting, processing, and analyzing data from multiple sources, which can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process to yield actionable insights. In contrast, sleep data, especially when collected passively from consumer devices, can enable health trends to be monitored in near real-time. Although sleep data remains largely unexplored at the population level, its potential value for future surveillance is important as it may provide a more timely and comprehensive understanding of health patterns across regions.

Maintaining data privacy is a top priority when conducting this research. UKHSA data will not be shared with Sleep Cycle for this study. The analysis will be carried out on UKHSA’s secure systems by a dedicated UKHSA research team supported by data scientists and epidemiologists from both organizations.

Sleep Cycle provides anonymized and privacy-protected insights from proprietary technology and user-approved data. UKHSA compares these trends with those of its own system. Sleep Cycle uses technology such as audio-based cough detection to monitor nighttime coughing behavior, which can be correlated with real-world virus data.

Health
By Satish Kumar

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