Feasibility of Obtaining Measures of Lifestyle From a Smartphone App: The MyHeart Counts Cardiovascular Health Study
Open accessAbstract
Importance: Studies have established the importance of physical activity and fitness, yet limited data exist on the associations between objective, real-world physical activity patterns, fitness, sleep, and cardiovascular health. Objectives: To assess the feasibility of obtaining measures of physical activity, fitness, and sleep from smartphones and to gain insights into activity patterns associated with life satisfaction and self-reported disease. Design, Setting, and Participants: The MyHeart Counts smartphone app was made available in March 2015, and prospective participants downloaded the free app between March and October 2015. In this smartphone-based study of cardiovascular health, participants recorded physical activity, filled out health questionnaires, and completed a 6-minute walk test. The app was available to download within the United States. Main Outcomes and Measures: The feasibility of consent and data collection entirely on a smartphone, the use of machine learning to cluster participants, and the associations between activity patterns, life satisfaction, and self-reported disease. Results: From the launch to the time of the data freeze for this study (March to October 2015), the number of individuals (self-selected) who consented to participate was 48 968, representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Their median age was 36 years (interquartile range, 27-50 years), and 82.2% (30 338 male, 6556 female, 10 other, and 3115 unknown) were male. In total, 40 017 (81.7% of those who consented) uploaded data. Among those who consented, 20 345 individuals (41.5%) completed 4 of the 7 days of motion data collection, and 4552 individuals (9.3%) completed all 7 days. Among those who consented, 40 017 (81.7%) filled out some portion of the questionnaires, and 4990 (10.2%) completed the 6-minute walk test, made available only at the end of 7 days. The Heart Age Questionnaire, also available after 7 days, required entering lipid values and age 40 to 79 years (among 17 245 individuals, 43.1% of participants). Consequently, 1334 (2.7%) of those who consented completed all fields needed to compute heart age and a 10-year risk score. Physical activity was detected for a mean (SD) of 14.5% (8.0%) of individuals' total recorded time. Physical activity patterns were identified by cluster analysis. A pattern of lower overall activity but more frequent transitions between active and inactive states was associated with equivalent self-reported cardiovascular disease as a pattern of higher overall activity with fewer transitions. Individuals' perception of their activity and risk bore little relation to sensor-estimated activity or calculated cardiovascular risk. Conclusions and Relevance: A smartphone-based study of cardiovascular health is feasible, and improvements in participant diversity and engagement will maximize yield from consented participants. Large-scale, real-world assessment of physical activity, fitness, and sleep using mobile devices may be a useful addition to future population health studies.
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For 50 000 people, lower overall activity but more frequent transitions between active and inactive periods was associated with similar CVD to higher overall activity but with fewer transitions.
“The relationship between physical activity and cardiovascular disease (CVD) was studied for 50 000 people in [130], finding that lower overall activity but more frequent transitions between active and inactive periods was associated with similar CVD to higher overall activity but with fewer transitions.”
From Human-centred artificial intelligence for mobile health sensing: challenges and opportunities (2023) · cites this paper as [130]
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- Authors
- McConnell, M. V., Shcherbina, A., Pavlovic, A., Homburger, J. R., Goldfeder, R. L., Waggot, D., Cho, M. K., Rosenberger, M. E., Haskell, W. L., Myers, J., Champagne, M. A., Mignot, E., Landray, M., Tarassenko, L., Harrington, R. A., Yeung, A. C., & Ashley, E. A.
- Affiliations
- Stanford Medicine (US)
- Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California2Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California
- Stanford University (US)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Ashley, Euan A.
- ORCID
- Venue
- JAMA Cardiology
- Publisher
- American Medical Association (AMA)
- Published
- 2017-01-01
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 67
- ISSN
- 2380-6583 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2565522107
- Cited by
- 239
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 37 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 1 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 50.86
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- JAMA Cardiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (IK6 RX002477)
- Verily Life Sciences
- U.S. National Library of Medicine (T15LM007033)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Physical Activity and Health
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
- Keywords
- mobile application, physical activity, fitness, sleep, cardiovascular health, life satisfaction, self-reported illness, 6-minute walk test, heart age, machine learning clustering, feasibility, wearable sensors, movement data
- MeSH terms
- Cardiorespiratory Fitness, Adult, Aged, Cardiovascular Physiological Phenomena, Feasibility Studies, Female, Humans, Life Style, Male, Middle Aged, Prospective Studies, Surveys and Questionnaires, Sleep, Exercise, Telemedicine, Mobile Applications
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