Developing Wearable Technologies to Advance Understanding of Precision Environmental Health: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief

Excerpt

The rapid proliferation of wearable devices that gather data on physical activity and physiology has become commonplace across various sectors of society. Concurrently, the development of advanced wearables and sensors capable of detecting a multitude of compounds presents new opportunities for monitoring environmental exposure risks. Wearable technologies are additionally showing promise in disease prediction, detection, and management, thereby offering potential advancements in the interdisciplinary fields of both environmental health and biomedicine. To gain insight into this burgeoning field, on June 1 and 2, 2023, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine organized a 2-day virtual workshop titled Developing Wearable Technologies to Advance Understanding of Precision Environmental Health. Experts from government, industry, and academia convened to discuss emerging applications and the latest advances in wearable technologies. The workshop aimed to explore the potential of wearables in capturing, monitoring, and predicting environmental exposures and risks to inform precision environmental health.