Study Links Air Pollution with Rescue Inhaler Use
This study is unique in that it looked at how air pollution impacts someoneâs day-to-day life, in terms of their symptoms,â said Meredith Barrett, vice president of research at Propeller Health, in an interview with MD+DI. She said past studies have had to rely on mortality or hospitalization data to understand how air pollution affects asthma, which represents more rare and severe exacerbation events. âBy using this medication-use data, weâre able to look at the daily burden of disease,â she said.
Data was gathered by fitting small sensors onto inhaled medication devices of some 2800 people across the United States. The sensors collected information on when and how frequently (by measuring the number of puffs) people were using their medicine. The sensors were paired with the patientâs smartphones, which provided a GPS location.
This data was merged with environmental information such as temperature, humidity, and precipitation, as well as air pollution data, all of which were collected from government sources. âFrom that data, weâre able to understand the conditions in which symptoms may occur,â Barrett said.
Propeller has developed models that will look at a personâs past record of medication use. As more and more data is collected on each individual, the models learn what...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Susan Shepard Tags: Digital Health Source Type: news