The DAPHNE Project
DAPHNE was an EU-funded study to develop and test methods for collecting, analysing and exploiting personal activity and fitness information, with a focus on reducing sedentary behaviour.
The project was led by the Spanish health technology company Treelogic in partnership with major IT companies IBM, Atos, Nevet, Evalan and SilverCloud. These businesses worked alongside researchers at the University of Leeds, the University of Madrid and the Children’s Hospital in Rome, Italy, along with World Obesity.
A new generation of sensors are capable of detecting personal energy expenditure, how much time a person has been sitting still, how much they have been walking or standing or doing housework and can estimate overall fitness from this data. The data can be analysed using information mining and intelligent heuristics to recognise behaviour patterns and see how successfully an individual is making changes to their lifestyle. With mobile phone apps and other communication devices, individuals can be given guidance on making further changes, improving their levels of physical fitness, managing their weight and preventing weight-related diseases.
Objectives
The DAPHNE project developed state-of-the-art data analysis platforms for collecting, analysing and delivering useful information on physical fitness and behaviour. Standardised data platforms will help hardware and software developers to provide personalised health information to individuals and to service providers.
The project anticipated three major areas of work.
- The development of monitoring sensors which can track individual behaviour and their communication of the data they collect using smartphones and other innovative communications technology.
- The development of information analysis platforms to receive the data using cloud storage, and to process the data and send it back to the individuals and forward to other end-users, including health service providers and fitness centres.
- The packaging of data collected across many individuals into overviews to guide and improve information for health service managers, health insurers and public health agencies, while ensuring this fully protects personal data and complies with ethical standards.
World Obesity's role
World Obesity will lead the dissemination and policy analysis parts of this project. This will include coordinating media dissemination, preparing summary documents and briefing papers, promoting the findings through EU and WHO networks, and organizing meetings and conference symposia to publicise the project. We are also strengthening the networking of the project by building an E-Network of European organisations involved in obesity, health promotion and related issues. See our E-Network list here.
EU Funding
DAPHNE is part-funded by the European Community under the 7th Framework Programme.
Sole responsibility for the project lies with the participating organisations; the European Commission is not responsible for the use that may be made of any material arising from this project.