Smartphone and wearable data (SaWD) has huge potential to contribute to cardiovascular research and healthcare. A key aim of the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Data Science Centre is to establish a prospective, large-scale smartphone and wearable dataset linked with participants’ NHS data. However, there is currently no consensus on what SaWD should be collected in such a study.
We therefore surveyed researchers, clinicians, patients and the public to define the SaWD with the most utility for cardiovascular research studies, and greatest acceptability for sharing by the public.
We identified a list of 13 measures that can be obtained from smartphones and wearables that would both support a broad range of cardiovascular research and be acceptable to potential study participants. These measures included continuous heart rate, moderate and vigorous activity and time spent being sedentary. Over 75% of public respondents were in favour of allowing the use of these 13 measures, indicating broad support for the use of these specific types of SaWD linked to NHS data for cardiovascular research.
The BHF Data Science Centre will use this list as a starting point for the creation of a large-scale dataset that can be linked to NHS data for cardiovascular research.