Story at a glance
- A new app allows users to self-report how they’re feeling each day.
- The How We Feel Project is collecting the data to help researchers and other public health officials have a better understanding of Americans’ collective well being.
- The nonprofit is also donating meals through Feeding America for each new signup.
Think you heard a cough from the apartment down the hallway? A new app is seeking to track and report how Americans are feeling, so you can check in on your neighbors and others in the area without getting too close.
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The How We Feel Project is a nonprofit founded by a volunteer team of scientists, doctors and technologists in March to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Collaborating with experts including Dr. Gary King from Harvard University and Ben Silbermann, CEO of Pinterest, the organization hopes to help scientists and researchers find new hotspots, identify at-risk populations and evaluate the effectiveness of health measures.
Users who download the app on their smartphones are asked to answer a number of prompts each day to self-report their health and any potential symptoms they may be exhibiting. Questions include: how you are feeling today, whether you have a number of preexisting conditions, whether you’ve smoked, your level of social interaction, how many people are in your household and whether they’ve tested positive for COVID-19, your age, sex and zipcode.
The data is aggregated and shared with doctors, scientists, researchers and public health professionals, and the nonprofit said they are developing techniques to maintain the privacy of users. Users can also see how people are feeling (well or not well) in their area, and how many people have checked in that day.
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Data on healthy people is also important in providing an aggregated sense of how Americans are faring during the coronavirus pandemic, and the app encourages you to update your status each day with personalized notifications.
“Take 30 seconds to donate your data by checking in while you brush your teeth in the morning or before you go to bed at night. Reporting your health data now has the potential to save lives later on,” the nonprofit says on their website.
The nonprofit is also partnering with Feeding America to donate a meal when you first use the app. As of the morning of April 10, the How We Feel Project had donated more than 135,000 meals.
While the app collects information on symptoms and outlines recommendations from public health officials on prevention, it does not provide medical advice or a diagnosis.
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