Evidation Health to Present at WWW 2017 on Results from the First Large-cohort Study of Social Network Impact on Physical Activity in Chronic Disease

SAN MATEO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#BigData–Evidation Health today announces the results
from one of the largest studies to date on the link between social
networks and physical activities in relation to self-reported chronic
health conditions.

It is well known that social influence can be a powerful driver of
behavior change. This IRB-approved study extends prior research
considering the link between social networks and physical activity by
analyzing a large cohort of activity trackers, including those with
self-reported chronic health conditions. The study analyzed data from
44,468 Fitbit users– 7,515 of those users self-reported whether they
had been diagnosed with a major chronic condition– to determine how
changes in a person’s level of physical activity can be linked with
changes in the size and composition of their social network. The study
uncovered that individuals with larger and more active social networks
have a higher level of physical activity, and that such positive
association is significantly greater for individuals with self-reported
diabetes and depression.

On Wednesday, April 5, the authors will present “The Spread of Physical
Activity Through Social Networks” at the 26th International World
Wide Web Conference. This year, 164 papers have been accepted from
the nearly 1,000 papers submitted in the 11 Technical Tracks.

“This large-scale study revealed that digital social interactions are
powerful indicators of people’s real-life behaviors in chronic disease
populations,” said Luca Foschini, Ph.D., Chief Data Scientist of
Evidation Health and the senior author on the study. “The findings will
inform the design of digital social interventions to improve outcomes in
people burdened by chronic health conditions.”

This study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from Google,
University of California Santa Barbara, and University of Southern
California.

Authors of the study include: Alessandro Epasto Ph.D., Research
Scientist at Google, work partially done at Brown University, Luca
Foschini Ph.D., Chief Data Scientist at Evidation Health, Greg Ver Steeg
Ph.D., Research Professor at University of Southern California, Haraldur
Tómas Hallgrímsson, Ph.D. Candidate at University of California Santa
Barbara, and David Stuck Ph.D., Data Scientist at Evidation Health.

About Evidation Health

Evidation Health helps healthcare companies quantify outcomes in the
digital era, with real life data from connected patients. The company
developed its Real Life Study Solution to accelerate and enhance
outcomes research through large-scale virtualized pragmatic trials–
collecting novel digital signals and measuring the impact of digital
health and traditional interventions far more efficiently than
conventional approaches. Evidation Health works across the healthcare
ecosystem with top pharmaceutical companies, payers, providers, and
digital healthcare companies. Evidation Health is a privately held
company headquartered in San Mateo, CA. For more information, visit www.evidation.com.

Contacts

Evidation Health
Polly Israni
press@evidation.com