Building new computational models to support health behavior change and maintenance: new opportunities in behavioral research.
Adverse and suboptimal health behaviors and habits are responsible for approximately 40 % of preventable deaths, in addition to their unfavorable effects on quality of life and economics. Our current understanding of human behavior is largely based on static "snapshots" of human behavior, rather than ongoing, dynamic feedback loops of behavior in response to ever-changing biological, social, personal, and environmental states. This paper first discusses how new technologies (i.e., mobile sensors, smartphones, ubiquitous computing, and cloud-enabled processing/computing) and emerging systems modeling techniques enable the development of new, dynamic, and empirical models of human behavior that could facilitate just-in-time adaptive, scalable interventions. The paper then describes concrete steps to the creation of robust dynamic mathematical models of behavior including: (1) establishing "gold standard" measures, (2) the creation of a behavioral ontology for shared language and understanding tools that both enable dynamic theorizing across disciplines, (3) the development of data sharing resources, and (4) facilitating improved sharing of mathematical models and tools to support rapid aggregation of the models. We conclude with the discussion of what might be incorporated into a "knowledge commons," which could help to bring together these disparate activities into a unified system and structure for organizing knowledge about behavior.
University of Southern California, 635 Downey Way, Suite 305 Building Code: VPD 3332, Los Angeles, CA 90089-3332 USA.
Donna
0000-0002-3884-4300
D
Spruijt-Metz
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ USA.
Eric
E
Hekler
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland.
Niilo
N
Saranummi
Northeastern University, Boston, MA USA.
Stephen
S
Intille
Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland.
Ilkka
I
Korhonen
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD USA.
Wendy
W
Nilsen
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ USA.
Daniel E
DE
Rivera
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL USA.
Bonnie
B
Spring
University College London, London, UK.
Susan
S
Michie
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA USA.
David A
DA
Asch
Scientific Institute Hospital San Raffaelle, Milano, Italy.
Alberto
A
Sanna
Valencia Polytechnical University, Valencia, Spain.
Vicente Traver
VT
Salcedo
Columbia University, New York, NY USA.
Rita
R
Kukakfa
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Espoo, Finland.
Misha
M
Pavel
Computational models of behavior; Connected health; Health-related behavior; Just-in-time adaptive interventions; Mobile health; Real-time interventions; mHealth