<em>Quantified Health: an overview of digital technologies and gamifcation to encourage sustained engagement in physical activity</em> — ASN Events

Quantified Health: an overview of digital technologies and gamifcation to encourage sustained engagement in physical activity (#179)

Stuart Smith 1
  1. University of the Sunshine Coast , QLD, Australia

Traditional health and medical research, operating within the dominant system- centric models for healthcare, has had an outstanding record of improving human health through better disease and injury prevention, the development of new screening and diagnostic technologies and new treatments, and by identifying better ways to allocate health care resources and organise health care delivery systems. However, it is clear that the sustainability of healthcare will crucially depend on  reducing the growing burden of preventable chronic disease associated with obesity and behavioural risk factors (physical inactivity, poor nutrition, smoking and harmful alcohol consumption); being better able to meet the health needs of the ageing population; developing new or more effective treatments; reducing the inequities that exist in health outcomes across the population; and finding effective ways to respond to the growing demands and costs for higher standards of care. The healthcare sector is poised at the cusp of a transformation from being reactive to disease and injury towards proactive prevention, where the ultimate goal is to maximise individual health rather than treat disease. Our next steps will be to better understand how a proactive approach to health can be predictive, personalised, preventative and participatory (P4). In this presentation I will outline the current state of art in the Quantified Health technologies space and how our group is making use of such technologies to increase engagement in physical activity and healthy behaviours. I will provide some evidence around the integration of consumer electronic technologies into delivery of health services.