1st International ICST Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare

Research Article

Increasing the Awareness of Daily Activity Levels with Pervasive Computing

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/PCTHEALTH.2006.361667,
        author={J. Maitland and S. Sherwood and L. Barkhuus and I. Anderson and M. Hall and B. Brown and M. Chalmers and H. Muller},
        title={Increasing the Awareness of Daily Activity Levels with Pervasive Computing},
        proceedings={1st International ICST Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={PERVASIVEHEALTH},
        year={2007},
        month={5},
        keywords={Health Promotion Commodity Technology Physical Activity Collaborative System},
        doi={10.1109/PCTHEALTH.2006.361667}
    }
    
  • J. Maitland
    S. Sherwood
    L. Barkhuus
    I. Anderson
    M. Hall
    B. Brown
    M. Chalmers
    H. Muller
    Year: 2007
    Increasing the Awareness of Daily Activity Levels with Pervasive Computing
    PERVASIVEHEALTH
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/PCTHEALTH.2006.361667
J. Maitland1,*, S. Sherwood1,*, L. Barkhuus1,*, I. Anderson2,*, M. Hall1,*, B. Brown1,*, M. Chalmers1,*, H. Muller2,*
  • 1: Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ. Phone: +441413302333
  • 2: Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, BS8 1UB. Phone: +441179545264
*Contact email: jules@dcs.gla.ac.uk, sherwood@dcs.gla.ac.uk, barkhuus@dcs.gla.ac.uk, anderson@cs.bris.ac.uk, mh@dcs.gla.ac.uk, barry@dcs.gla.ac.uk, matthew@dcs.gla.ac.uk, henkm@cs.bris.ac.uk

Abstract

Public health promotion technology should be accessible to the general public at which it is aimed. This paper explores the potential for use of an unaugmented commodity technology - the mobile phone - as a health promotion tool. We describe a prototype application that tracks the daily exercise activities of people carrying phones, using fluctuation in signal strength to estimate a user's movement. In a short-term study of the prototype that shared activity information amongst groups of friends, we found that awareness encouraged reflection on, and increased motivation for, daily activity. We describe some of the details of the pilot study, and conclude with our intended plans to develop the system further in order to carry out a longer-term clinical trial