Transcriber: Sandra Balabenute Reviewer: Maria Pericleous
We've never had access to so much data,
especially data related to our personal health,
the kind of data that's on your smartwatch right now,
that kind of data is able to give you unique insights
about your personal health,
can help you stay active, can even change your habits.
But sharing that data can really help build a better world.
Now I get it, I get it, sharing data.
People are really concerned about that.
For a lot of people, it’s the monster under the bed.
But I want to talk to you about how
the rewards far outweigh any risks of sharing your data.
So there’s two things you have to understand
when it comes to sharing data.
The first thing is that you own your data.
So right now, your data is probably sitting on some company server
in a database somewhere,
and that company is using it to better understand you as a customer,
and trying to make better products based on your data as well.
But at the end of the day, you own that data.
The second thing to understand
is that that smartwatch that you’re using on a daily basis,
it’s actually a scientific instrument.
It's collecting valid, reliable scientific data.
And by sharing that data with researchers,
you can become a citizen scientist.
Now there are lots of citizen scientists in the world.
There's over a billion devices being used right now.
And sharing that data is important.
Now, I have the pleasure of leading
the wearable technology citizen science program at the University of Calgary.
This is Canada’s first specialization in wearable technology,
and our goal is to train the next generation
of wearable technology experts.
I was trained as a biomechanist.
So I analyzed the way people walk and run.
I was trained in a laboratory, I usually collect my data on a treadmill,
but I changed my entire research focus
back in 2007, when I was introduced to wearable technology
and it was introduced to me by a patient.
Her name was Maggie.
She came to see me for running injury, I’d already analyzed her gait,
or the way that she runs
and starting to figure out why she's injured.
I had some good ideas about that, and I asked her a very typical question.
I said, “Hey Maggie, what runs do you have planned this week?”
Maggie looked at me and said “I was going for a run today,
but I forgot my Nike chip at home.”
I looked at one of my students and I said, “What’s a Nike chip?”
She said, “it’s this little thing
that goes in my shoe and tracks me while I run.”
And I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa wait a minute.
Explain this to me, please.”
So she reached into her bag
and she pulled out a Nike Air Pegasus shoe.
And then she lifted up the insole
and she showed me an empty space.
And I said, “Well, what’s that?”
And she said, “Well, that’s where the chip goes.”
And I said, “what does this thing do?”
And she said, “well, it keeps track of my miles, figures out how fast I’m running,
counts my steps.
It actually connects to my iPod Nano so I can listen to music.
And every now and then people, like Lance Armstrong, chime in
tell me I’m doing a great job, or tell me when I’m finished my run.”
I said, “That’s awesome, can I look at your data?”
And very generously she gave me her password.
And I just started poring over her data.
And after a while, I actually figured out a big reason why Maggie got injured.
And I knew when she got injured.
And it actually just boiled down to a couple of factors,
and it gave me new insight
and more evidence in terms of how her treatment should look.
Now this is great news for Maggie,
but that was my light bulb moment.
That’s when I really started to think about
what if I started pulling all this data together?
I could start figuring out other people’s errors or problems
or the root cause of their injury.
When I start amalgamating
and having people share this data with me,
because we know that competitive and recreational runners,
runners just like you,
they run differently.
Men and women run differently.
You actually change your gait pattern as you get older.
These are important considerations when trying to prevent an injury.
So sharing your data with me can actually help the people beside you
in terms of preventing injuries.
When personal data becomes scientific data,
it improves our personal health.
So I want to share three stories with you of how sharing data can help improve
our personal health, our city, as well as our health care system in general.
So first, sharing your data can help improve our personal health.
Over 30,000 people, not too long ago,
shared their data with researchers from the Scripps Institute,
just the regular data that comes from their smartwatch.
So these researchers had access to their heart rate,
their activity patterns, their sleep patterns.
These people also filled out questionnaires,
and researchers used that data to predict COVID 19
a full two days before they even showed any symptoms.
It’s incredible,
and they use that data to predict and prevent community outbreaks.
So when personal data becomes scientific data,
communities are healthier.
Next, sharing your data can help improve our city.
I was contacted by the city a few years ago, they said,
“Hey, Reid, can you help us understand where people are cycling in the city?”
I said, “sure, cyclists use tons of wearable technology.”
The city went on to explain to me
that they rely on volume counts and accidents.
As really the two primary pieces of information,
in order to make decisions
about how to spend our tax dollars on things like dedicated bike lanes.
But wearable technology gives you so much more information than just that.
So we analyzed thousands of rides
and we were actually able to pinpoint
specific areas in the city where cyclists are stressed.
So we know they’re stressed
because there’s a disconnect between how much work they’re performing,
which is easily measured using wearable technology,
and their heart rate.
So think about riding down a slight downhill,
or on a stretch of road where there’s no traffic lights
and you don’t have to start and stop or speed up and slow down.
In those types of areas, you do less work.
And if you do less work, your heart rate should go down.
But we were able to pinpoint areas of the city
where heart rate actually went up,
where cyclists were doing less work.
Why did their heart rate go up?
Because they’re stressed.
They're stressed about a car door opening on their right.
They're stressed about a car passing them on their left.
So this is another layer of data that the city can now use
to make evidence-based decisions
about how to spend our tax dollars.
But we need your data.
We need to know where all citizens are riding,
and how you're feeling in certain areas.
Lastly, I want to talk about
how sharing your data can help improve our health care system.
We’re currently working
with researchers and surgeons at the Tom Baker Cancer Center.
We're building them a web portal
so they can track their cancer patients in real time.
They want to know about exercise adherence.
And they want to understand just the general activities
for these patients.
And we need your data to help with this.
Why?
Because technology these days is amazing
that watch you’re wearing on your wrist,
it actually collects medical grade information.
It can tell you how much oxygen is saturated in your blood,
gives you information about heart rate variability,
which is an excellent indicator of just overall health.
We need to build normative standards
so we can compare these patients
to better understand their health status.
When personal data becomes scientific data,
we can improve our health care system.
One day soon you can go in to see your doctor
and instead of them ordering a test to look at your heart health,
instead of them drawing blood to understand blood chemistry,
or how stressed you are,
you can just show him your phone,
and the data collected by your wearable technology,
and they can make a better decision about your health status
and how to treat you as a patient.
So just like Maggie was very generous,
and she shared her data with me.
I’m asking you to share your data with researchers.
Thank you.