Project Baseline Blog
The latest news from Project Baseline
Let it snow sensor data
Wednesday, December 27, 2017
Project Baseline study participants are finding a special surprise in their mailboxes this week: Holiday cards featuring snowflakes (as pictured above) that we designed with Project Baseline sensor data.
To celebrate the season and express gratitude to our study community, we used
open-source software
to create a personalized, unique snowflake for each participant who enrolled in the study before December and had ample sleep and activity data from their investigational Study Watch and Sleep Sensor.
The number of tips reflects the average number of hours a given participant has slept each night since joining the study. The color reflects the average number of steps she or he has taken each day; a darker color indicates more steps, whereas a lighter color indicates fewer steps relative to other participants.
For those who did not yet have enough data from their Study Watch or Sleep Sensor to calculate meaningful averages, we created a snowflake using aggregate data from all Project Baseline study participants.
This was a fun way to examine the sensor data and spread some holiday cheer to our valued study community. In the future, as the number of enrolled participants grows and therefore our ability to query for meaningful insights increases, we look forward to using the sensor data to better understand health and the transition to disease.
License for open-source software: Copyright (c) 2004-2010 by Internet Systems Consortium, Inc. ("ISC") Copyright (c) 1995-2003 by Internet Software Consortium
Posted by Kasley Killam, Community Engagement Manager, Verily
Happy Holidays from the Project Baseline Team
Friday, December 22, 2017
This holiday season, we look back with gratitude for all we’ve accomplished this year, the participants who have joined and the team who made the Project Baseline study possible.
From scientists who designed the study, to engineers who created the participant portal, to the coordinators at each study site who interact with participants on a daily basis, the Project Baseline study would not have made such progress without such a strong, interdisciplinary team. A big recognition to the individuals pictured above who engage with their local communities and guide participants through their annual and quarterly site visits. We thank all of you in Durham, Kannapolis, Palo Alto and Los Angeles who are helping make the Project Baseline study possible!
We are sending extra boughs of holiday cheer to each and every one of our participants, our Baseline Explorers. Without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today or be able to go where we hope in 2018. We are grateful for the overwhelming interest in the study as well as the dedication of time and effort from each participant.
As the year comes to a close, we reflect on some of our fondest memories of 2017:
We
officially launched
Project Baseline!
We welcomed our first Baseline Explorers to the study sites to embark on their four-year journey with us
We held one-on-one feedback sessions with participants to collaborate on the study experience
We look forward to 2018 as we gradually welcome more participants, collect feedback to further iterate and improve the participant experience, as well as start to explore deeper scientific insights. Together with our participants we are well on our journey to better understanding health and preventing disease.
Happy (Healthful) Holidays from the team at Project Baseline!
Posted by Rachel Taylor, Contributing Editor, Verily
Establishing a New Baseline of Health and Research Participation for Diverse Populations
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
The Project Baseline study seeks to collect health information from a diverse group of people and monitor how that information changes over time to uncover new insights about the transition from health to disease. The information gleaned from this study will help us better understand how factors such as genes, lifestyle, and the environment influence health. It is important to measure health diversity in a large number of unique individuals in order to determine what is "normal" or expected for a healthy individual. Once these measures, or reference points — referred to as biomarkers or warning signs — are established, the healthcare community may become better at predicting and possibly even preventing future onset of disease.
To make a complete map of human health, the data collected must be reflective of people of different ages, races, ethnicities, geographic locations, and health histories. However, data has shown that research studies are primarily populated by people of European descent with low representation of African American, Latino, and Asian populations. Asian Americans are the fastest growing minority group in the United States, but are among the least represented minority group in clinical research.
1
Further, while African Americans and Latinos make up 30% of the U.S. population, they account for just 6% of participants in federally funded clinical trials.
2
This is concerning since inherited heart diseases, such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), have been misdiagnosed in African Americans because the population is underrepresented in genomic studies.
3
Responding to the urgent call-to-action to help eliminate these health disparities, the Project Baseline study has focused from the beginning on achieving a sample that reflects the diversity captured in U.S. census data. Study leaders have ensured that inclusion of a diverse population is a key component of the study design. Partners in the Project Baseline study, including Duke University School of Medicine and Stanford Medicine, which have deep presence and trusted relationships with minority members of their communities, immediately recognized the historic inequalities in research that might make this a challenge, and championed the approach that engagement is a bidirectional relationship resulting in mutual benefit.
These institutions and their representatives respect that research participants are embedded in dynamic histories and community frameworks, and have been committed to developing respectful relationships that create mutual value. The Baseline team believes in approaching their work with cultural humility and consistent presence. Education and information exchange are key underpinnings of their work. To create a dedicated conduit to community perspective, both institutions are working with community groups with diverse representation that includes study participants, public health officials, faith-based and civic leaders, and local physicians. These groups have had an active role in helping educate the Project Baseline study team about the needs of minority participants and underrepresented communities. Duke enrollment sites also identified local African American and Latino community representatives for the Project Baseline Study Steering Committee, who help govern the study. At Stanford Medicine, the team has been working closely with local leaders, health clinics, and community groups to get feedback and input on their processes. Additionally, they have made a concerted effort to ensure that their study staff is representative of the diversity of the Bay Area.
Meeting people where they are, having boots on the ground, and working closely with respected community leaders have proven to be successful minority engagement strategies in North Carolina, where Project Baseline has two enrollment locations with the Duke site. Learning from these successful models, all Project Baseline recruitment sites have implemented similar efforts. Project Baseline study leaders and staff regularly partner with churches, civic clubs, advocacy groups, and other community-based organizations to host educational presentations and listening sessions. They also work with healthcare teams from clinics serving low income and minority populations.
Outreach teams comprising minority community members have their fingers on the pulse of the community daily and bring valuable input to inform the project. These teams are invested in building relationships and maintaining a consistent presence at community events such as farmers’ markets, races, health fairs, and sporting events. The Project Baseline study aims to achieve a new gold standard for participant partnership and experience, reflected by its commitment to respectfully engaging minority participants. This requires a collaborative effort across the Project Baseline study partners and continuous adjustment and iteration of our collective approach as we learn from the study participants themselves. In 2018, we hope to increase the number of community engagement activities and events, and continue learning about the most effective tools for minority inclusion.
1
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24092627
2
Oh SS, et al. Diversity in clinical and biomedical research: a promise yet to be fulfilled. PLoS Med; [accepted 30 October 2015]10.1371/journal.pmed.1001918
3
N Engl J Med 2016;375:655–65
Posted by Bray Patrick-Lake, MFS, Duke Coordinating Center Engagement Liaison
Project Baseline Presents Thanksgiving Day Insights
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
At Project Baseline our goal is to map human health. An important part of mapping health is to understand what it means in the context of our day-to-day lives. Thanks to the innovative tools and technologies that we develop and use at Verily, we’re able to do exactly that. We can begin to track and understand how health changes outside of the doctor’s office.
Holidays offer an exciting opportunity to see how people’s habits and thus health can change in the context of life events. Thanksgiving, for example, is a day where most Americans’ routines are altered: Many individuals don’t have to work and instead get together with relatives or friends they may only see once a year to indulge and relax. We were curious how this particular holiday impacted our participants’ activity and sleep habits, so we turned to the sensor data we collected that day.
Activity
We measure activity through our
Study Watch
, an investigational wristwatch that participants wear on a daily basis. On Thanksgiving, we saw a 14% decrease in activity time from the daily average since the study launched in April 2017. Surprisingly, even though our participants logged fewer active minutes, they logged more steps. More steps over less time is possible because our participants were running! On an average day, only 0.3% of our participants’ activity time is spent running. On Thanksgiving, that average jumped to 2.4%. Whether they joined a local Turkey Trot or took a jog with loved ones, there was a notable difference in activity that morning.
Sleep
Whether it’s because of a big meal or an exhausting day of cooking and catching up with relatives, our participants on average logged 30 more minutes in bed on Thanksgiving night than an average night. We measured this through the
sleep sensor
that participants place under their mattress, which passively monitors their sleep.
On behalf of the entire Project Baseline team, we hope you had a great holiday and look forward to sharing more insights as we continue our journey of mapping human health. This holiday season, we are thankful to our study participants and everyone who makes this initiative possible. If you’re interested in joining us in the new year, visit
projectbaseline.com
to apply.
Disclaimer: The Project Baseline study is research, not clinical care. The results or data shared here are not intended to diagnose, prevent, or treat any disease. Results or data collected from sensors, investigational devices, and wearables in this study may not have been validated and therefore may not be precisely accurate. The data for this infographic was collected from participants via the Study Watch and Sleep Sensor from April -November 2017.
Posted by Naxin Wang, Analytics Program Manager, Verily
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