Adaptive real-time coaching in free-living conditions
Date
2022
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Physical inactivity and prolonged sedentary behavior is strongly linked to cardiovascular disease. Strikingly, almost 90 percent of US adults report being inactive with majority of waking hours spent sedentary. Sedentary behavior is one of the most modifiable behaviors for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Wearable technology has opened opportunities to reduce sedentary behavior; however, commercially available wearables (e.g. Fitbit) do not provide tailored coaching strategies. Just-in-time Adaptive Interventions (JITAI) is thought to significantly outperform these non-tailored approaches. In order to implement an effective autonomous JITAI coach, a significant amount of individual user data is required. In the context of wearable technology, collecting data may include nudging users with a message and observing their physical response (e.g. change in step count). This data acquisition constraint provides challenges to provide a fully autonomous JITAI coach. In this dissertation, we develop mobile technology that collects contextualized user information, provides coaching in the form of a 'nudge', and records corresponding physical responses. We then profile users based on their behaviors and analyze inter- and intra- user similarities in order to understand what information can be re-used in order to address this data acquisition constraint. Finally, we develop and evaluate a novel learning algorithm implementing an autonomous JITAI coach. This technology aims to supplement human coaching functions while adding the advantage of just-in-time contextualized and individualized messaging based on information from Fitbit and other mobile phone applications. Our work is the first to develop such autonomous and adaptive system utilizing fully non-synthetic data---nudge context (e.g. location, time of day, driving) and response---in free-living conditions. The presented research aims to increase the number of adults who have access to an effective coach to reduce sedentary behavior, which in turn will improve population level cardiovascular health.
Description
Keywords
Physical inactivity, Sedentary behavior