WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The UK Health Security Agency and AI sleep technology company Sleep Cycle have published the results of a research study evaluating if cough data from a sleep app could give early indications of increasing respiratory illness in England.
The study found that the passive data collected can provide a robust and regionally consistent indicator of community respiratory illness while also providing early signals for influenza and Covid-19.
Researchers found that cough data collected through the app closely reflected levels of respiratory illness reported through NHS 111, with rises in coughing often seen around a week before increases in flu and COVID-19 cases.
Existing surveillance systems rely on people seeking care through the NHS, which can be influenced by factors including public awareness, service availability and demographic or socioeconomic differences, and they are also impacted by reporting and laboratory processing times.
Sleep Cycle is a smartphone app designed to help people understand and improve their sleep through AI-powered sound analysis. Unlike traditional surveillance, Sleep Cycle's cough signal is generated automatically during normal sleep using privacy-preserved, passively collected data and updated daily, providing a near real-time view of respiratory illness activity.
The study found that increases in coughing were often observed around one week before increases in influenza and Covid, highlighting the potential of passive digital health data to provide earlier situational awareness alongside established surveillance systems.
Dr. Mikael Kågebäck, Chief Technology Officer and Acting Chief Executive Officer at Sleep Cycle, said, 'This study validates a completely new category of health data. For the first time, we've demonstrated that passively generated smartphone data can produce robust population-level health intelligence at national scale, while also providing earlier signals for influenza and COVID-19 activity.'
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