Assessment of ownership of smart devices and the acceptability of digital health data sharing

Abstract

Smart portable devices- smartphones and smartwatches- are rapidly being adopted by the general population, which has brought forward an opportunity to use the large volumes of physiological, behavioral, and activity data continuously being collected by these devices in naturalistic settings to perform research, monitor health, and track disease. While these data can serve to revolutionize health monitoring in research and clinical care, minimal research has been conducted to understand what motivates people to use these devices and their interest and comfort in sharing the data. In this study, we aimed to characterize the ownership and usage of smart devices among patients from an expansive academic health system in the southeastern US and understand their willingness to share data collected by the smart devices. We conducted an electronic survey of participants from an online patient advisory group around smart device ownership, usage, and data sharing. Out of the 3021 members of the online patient advisory group, 1368 (45%) responded to the survey, with 871 female (64%), 826 and 390 White (60%) and Black (29%) participants, respectively, and a slight majority (52%) age 58 and older. Most of the respondents (98%) owned a smartphone and the majority (59%) owned a wearable. In this population, people who identify as female, Hispanic, and Generation Z (age 18-25), and those completing higher education and having full-time employment, were most likely to own a wearable device compared to their demographic counterparts. 50% of smart device owners were willing to share and 32% would consider sharing their smart device data for research purposes. The type of activity data they are willing to share varies by gender, age, education, and employment. Findings from this study can be used to design both equitable and cost-effective digital health studies, leveraging personally-owned smartphones and wearables in representative populations, ultimately enabling the development of equitable digital health technologies.

Fig. 1. Who owns smart devices?.

Smart device ownership: smartphone (a–e) and wearables (f–j) ownership by different demographic factors (gender, age, race, highest level of education, and current employment status, respectively), including the number of respondents per demographic group (k–o). A.I. American Indian, A.N. Alaska Native, N.H. Native Hawaiian, P.I. other Pacific Islander, LFW looking for work, and NLFW not looking for work.

Fig. 2. Frequency of usage of smart devices.

Usage of smartphones (for activity tracking) and wearables on (a) weekdays and (b) weekends. (c) Daily usage of wearables.

Fig. 3. Why do people use wearables?.

Motivation for using wearable devices among participants who own them (N = 802).

Fig. 4. Reason for not owning wearable devices.

Reasons for not owning wearable devices among participants who don’t own them (N = 566).

Fig. 5. Willingness to share smart device data.

a Participants willingness to share their smart devices’ data types: Fitness and workout monitoring, health tracking, sleep monitoring, and self-reported measures. b Association of participants’ willingness to share different types of data collected by smart devices with demographic factors, with beige color representing p-values > 0.05 and green colors representing p values < 0.05.