GAMIFYING
HEALTH DATA
COLLECTION
Mariko Wakabayashi & RJ Kunde
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Collaborators: Jason Cho, Tom Olson, Shravan Gupta,
and Seungchul Lee
MOTIVATION
• Health data collection is dependent on a user’s
motivation to participate
• E.g. Health diary
• Increasing number of tools which can assist in
identification, correlation and eventual care for
patients and their diseases
• Growing opportunity for health professionals
APPROACH
• Aim for continuous user engagement
• Gamification to maintain user’s participation, and
collect health data from numerous sources
• e.g. heart monitor sensor, accelerometer sensor
Prototype:
• Developed a gamified mobile application that collects
physical activity and users’ health information
• Focused on two types of health data
• Data from smartphone’s accelerometer sensor
• Data from users’ health question answers
WHAT IS GAMIFICATION?
Gamification: The application of game mechanics (e.g. competition,
rewards) to a particular task or goal in order to create motivation among
participants
Location-based Social Network: Foursquare
Education: Khan Academy
Professional Network; LinkedIn’s Profile
Completeness Circle
EXAMPLES OF GAMIFICATION IN MEDICAL
LITERATURE (1)
Task 1: Educating the general public about healthy behavior
Example: OrderUP! –players learn how to make healthier meal choices
Field Study Conclusion
 Encouraged participants to live healthier lifestyles
 Participants engaged in four process of change identified by the Trans
Theoretical Model
EXAMPLES OF GAMIFICATION IN MEDICAL
LITERATURE (2)
Task 2: Health diary annotation completed by particular demographics
• E.g. Pain Squad – mobile application that encourages young cancer
patients to fill out pain reports.
• Raised the compliance rate in annotating pain reports from 11% to
over 80%.
DR.POCKET – PROTOTYPE HEALTH MOBILE APPLICATION
Goal: To accomplish Task 1 and 2 with our
mobile application.
 Health Diary Annotation by adults
 Educate about healthy behavior and
encourage a healthier lifestyle
Dr. Pocket:
 Asks user’s anxiety related questions
 Tracks daily movement
 Integration of two types of health data
to understand user’s anxiety levels
DR.POCKET GAMIFICATION FRAMEWORK
Answering
Health
Question
Healthy
Life-Style
Points
Engage in
Physical
Activity
DR.POCKET – HEALTH RELATED QUESTIONS
Modeled after the Institute of Medicine’s main determinants of health
Compiled surveys and scales from Centers for Disease Control (CDC),
and Ian McDowell’s Measuring Health - A Guide to Rating Scales and
Questionnaires
Dr. Pocket
Focus on anxiety
• One of the most common mental illness in the US
• Prevalent amongst students
Consists 102 questions from 6 different categories: stress, sleep,
fatigue, anxiety, pain, and depression
HEALTH QUESTION EXAMPLES
DR.POCKET – TRACKING MOVEMENT
 Tracks movement with accelerometer and
gyroscope
 Goal is to obtain enough data to study the
integration between health questions with
physical activity and train application for
feedback
 Game elements added to step count
• Progress Wheel (Competition)
• Setting goal
• Awarding Points for Participation (Rewards)
DR.POCKET – STATISTICAL FEEDBACK
Provided Information for the user:
 Daily and accumulated score
• Calories Burned
• Step counts
• Distance Traveled
• Questions Answered
Game Elements encouraging
Competition:
 Number of points obtained
 Tangible visuals to understand
calculated numbers
 Acquired marketplace items
and its duration
PILOT STUDY
Hypotheses
 Goal 1: Gamification in health data collection is effective
 Goal 2: Integration of passive and active data collection is more effective
than either approach on its own.
Procedure
 15 subjects used prototype application for 2 weeks
 Subjects description: 18-25 age group, 5 females/10 males, students
Results
 Collected 1,380 responses and over 747,000 step counts.
 Participants enjoyed and vouch for gamification
 “The concept of earning "points" for walking more or answering more
questions is really what motivated me.”
 “The application showed me how much lower than the target I was at on a
daily basis so it prompted me to walk more.,”
CONCLUSION - FUTURE WORK
Future Work:
Improve user interface
Expand on current features
 Increase of questions from 100 to 500
 Implement adaptive questions
 Add network functionality to increase
competition
Conduct Larger Study
 200 person, IRB sanctioned human study
 Monitor user engagement, and train
application to detect anxiety levels
 Develop a feedback system based on results
QUESTIONS?