Zoe Health Study

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Developer(s)
Operating system Android, iOS
Type COVID-19 apps
Website health-study.joinzoe.com OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

The Zoe Health Study, formerly the COVID Symptom Study, is a health research project of British company Zoe Limited (formerly Zoe Global limited) which uses a mobile app that runs on Android and iOS.

Contents

The app was created in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in a collaboration between Zoe, King's College London, Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals with funding granted by the UK government until April 2022. [1] The purpose of the app was to track COVID-19 symptoms and other salient data in a large number of people, to enable epidemiological results to be calculated.

Timeline

The idea for an app to track the spread of COVID-19 came from Tim Spector, an epidemiologist at King's College London. In the early months of 2020 he used his startup company ZOE Global Limited to build a Covid Symptom Tracker app in collaboration with King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals. [2] [3] By May 2020 the app's name had changed to COVID Symptom Study. [4] Initially the project was UK-based, where there is open membership. [5] In the United States at a later date[ when? ] various cohorts from existing studies were added, including from the Nurses' Health Study; this research was in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital. [5] The project website states that ZOE COVID Study data provided will not be sold (aggregate data from wider Zoe health studies research may be used by Zoe to develop commercial health products). [6] The project also collaborated with the Outbreaks Near Me platform based out of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital. [7]

The app was released as a trial for 5,000 twins, [8] using patients involved in other Zoe research projects. [2] It was later expanded for use by non-twins. [2] The app entered the UK Apple App Store and Google Play Store on 24 March, and the US App and Play stores on 29 March. [5]

At the end of April 2020, the project received assistance from the Department of Health and Social Care which allowed it to offer up to 10,000 COVID-19 tests each week to participants. [9] In August 2020, the UK government made a grant of £2 million to support data collection by the project, [10] [11] and by August 2021, government funding amounted to £5m. [12] In May 2021, the associated company name was changed from ZOE Global Limited to ZOE Limited. [13] Government funding (latterly via the UK Health Security Agency) ceased at the end of March 2022. [14] [1]

In May 2022, ZOE announced that the name of the study would change to ZOE Health Study, to reflect its use in logging symptoms extending beyond those of COVID-19. [15]

Uptake

Covid Symptom Tracker screenshot.PNG

Within 24 hours of being available in the UK, the app had been downloaded over 1 million times. [2] A paper using data collected in the four weeks up to 21 April 2020 analysed symptoms from 2.45 million people in the UK and 168,000 in the US. [16] As of May 2020, the app had been downloaded by over 3 million people, [5] including 2 million Britons. [17] By 17 July the number exceeded 4 million. [18]

Researchers who analysed data collected in the last three months of 2020 said they used more than 65 million health reports from 1.76 million users. [19] By July 2021, the app had been used by 4.6 million people in Britain and about a quarter of that number continued to self-report every day. [12]

Research

The COVID Symptom Study requires users to give their location. [17] Users give personal information including age, gender and location, and report if they have any underlying chronic conditions. [20] They also answer questions related to common COVID-19 symptoms, and input any illness or symptoms that they have, [5] [2] as well as stating whether they have been tested for COVID-19. [20] Beginning in May 2020, a random sample of users is selected (on the first day they report symptoms) for a swab test. [9] Researchers then use statistical analysis to determine which symptoms are likely to indicate COVID-19, [17] rather than the common cold or seasonal influenza. [2] The app does not have any contact tracing functionality. [5]

Based on the data inputted into the app, researchers estimated that when cases peaked on 1 April 2020, 2.1 million people in the UK aged between 20 and 69 may have had COVID-19, and that as of 23 May 2020, 280,000 people in that age range currently had symptoms consistent with COVID-19. [21] The study also estimates the risk level to health workers, compared with the general public. [22] Research based on the app was described in papers in Science on 5 May 2020 [23] and in Nature Medicine on 11 May 2020. [16] Using data from the app, researchers were able to identify six distinct types of COVID-19 and forecast which initial symptoms were more likely to lead to severe illnesses. [24] [25]

Zoe Limited

Zoe Limited also provides in the US and UK, as a separate product, a "personalized nutrition program" whereby the company supplies sensors to quantify a person's gut microbiome, blood fat, and blood sugar responses to food intake, alongside an app which uses this data to recommend dietary modifications. [26] [27]

See also

Related Research Articles

Timothy David Spector is a British epidemiologist, medical doctor, and science writer, working on the relationship between nutrition, the gut microbiome, and health. He argues against low-fat diets and fad diets, and instead advocates for a Mediterranean-style diet that is heavily plant-based, high in fibre, limits ultra-processed foods, and includes a diversity of plants.

Your.MD also known as Healthily, is a digital healthtech company that uses artificial intelligence to provide users with personalised health information via a chatbot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 pandemic</span> Pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It spread to other areas of Asia, and then worldwide in early 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and assessed the outbreak had become a pandemic on 11 March.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19</span> Contagious disease caused by SARS-CoV-2

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Most scientists believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus entered into human populations through natural zoonosis, similar to the SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV outbreaks, and consistent with other pandemics in human history. Social and environmental factors including climate change, natural ecosystem destruction and wildlife trade increased the likelihood of such zoonotic spillover. The disease quickly spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 testing</span> Diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 virus infection

COVID-19 testing involves analyzing samples to assess the current or past presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that cases COVID-19 and is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The two main types of tests detect either the presence of the virus or antibodies produced in response to infection. Molecular tests for viral presence through its molecular components are used to diagnose individual cases and to allow public health authorities to trace and contain outbreaks. Antibody tests instead show whether someone once had the disease. They are less useful for diagnosing current infections because antibodies may not develop for weeks after infection. It is used to assess disease prevalence, which aids the estimation of the infection fatality rate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom</span>

The COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the United Kingdom, it has resulted in 24,971,207 confirmed cases, and is associated with 232,112 deaths.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 pandemic in England</span>

The COVID-19 pandemic was first confirmed to have spread to England with two cases among Chinese nationals staying in a hotel in York on 31 January 2020. The two main public bodies responsible for health in England were NHS England and Public Health England (PHE).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 surveillance</span> Measures to monitor the spread of the respiratory disease

COVID-19 surveillance involves monitoring the spread of the coronavirus disease in order to establish the patterns of disease progression. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends active surveillance, with focus of case finding, testing and contact tracing in all transmission scenarios. COVID-19 surveillance is expected to monitor epidemiological trends, rapidly detect new cases, and based on this information, provide epidemiological information to conduct risk assessment and guide disease preparedness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 apps</span> Mobile apps designed to aid contact tracing

COVID-19 apps include mobile-software applications for digital contact-tracing—i.e. the process of identifying persons ("contacts") who may have been in contact with an infected individual—deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British government response to the COVID-19 pandemic</span>

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the UK Government introduced various public health and economic measures to mitigate its impact. Devolution meant that the four nations' administrative responses to the pandemic differed; the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive produced different policies to those that apply in England. Numerous laws were enacted or introduced throughout the crisis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVIDSafe</span> Contact tracing app by the Australian Department of Health

COVIDSafe was a digital contact tracing app released by the Australian Government on 26 April 2020 to help combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The app was intended to augment traditional contact tracing by automatically tracking encounters between users and later allowing a state or territory health authority to warn a user they have come within 1.5 metres with an infected person for 15 minutes or more. To achieve this, it used the BlueTrace and Herald protocol, originally developed by the Singaporean Government and VMWare respectively, to passively collect an anonymised registry of near contacts. The efficacy of the app was questioned over its lifetime, ultimately identifying just 2 confirmed cases by the time it was decommissioned on 16 August 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NHS COVID-19</span> UK contact tracing app for COVID-19

NHS COVID-19 was a voluntary contact tracing app for monitoring the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in England and Wales, in use from 24 September 2020 until 27 April 2023. It was available for Android and iOS smartphones, and could be used by anyone aged 16 or over.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NHS Test and Trace</span> Government COVID-19 agency in England

NHS Test and Trace was a government-funded service in England, established in 2020 to track and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The programme is part of the UK Health Security Agency; the service and the agency are headed by Jenny Harries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID Tracker Ireland</span> Contact tracing application released by the Government of Ireland on 7 July 2020

COVID Tracker Ireland is a digital contact tracing app released by the Irish Government and the Health Service Executive on 7 July 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Ireland. The app uses ENS and Bluetooth technology to determine whether a user have been a close contact of someone for more than 15 minutes who tested positive for COVID-19. On 8 July, the app reached one million registered users within 36 hours after its launch, representing more than 30% of the population of Ireland and over a quarter of all smartphone users in the country. As of August 2021, over 3,030,000 people have downloaded the app.

Long COVID or long-haul COVID is a group of health problems persisting or developing after an initial period of COVID-19 infection. Symptoms can last weeks, months or years and are often debilitating. The World Health Organization defines long COVID as starting three months after the initial COVID-19 infection, but other agencies define it as starting at four weeks after the initial infection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public health mitigation of COVID-19</span> Measures to halt the spread of the respiratory disease among populations

Part of managing an infectious disease outbreak is trying to delay and decrease the epidemic peak, known as flattening the epidemic curve. This decreases the risk of health services being overwhelmed and provides more time for vaccines and treatments to be developed. Non-pharmaceutical interventions that may manage the outbreak include personal preventive measures such as hand hygiene, wearing face masks, and self-quarantine; community measures aimed at physical distancing such as closing schools and cancelling mass gathering events; community engagement to encourage acceptance and participation in such interventions; as well as environmental measures such surface cleaning. It has also been suggested that improving ventilation and managing exposure duration can reduce transmission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Test, Trace, Protect</span> Welsh Government COVID-19 service

Test, Trace, Protect is a government-funded service in Wales, first published on 13 May 2020 by the Welsh Government to track and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Its aim is to "enhance health surveillance in the community, undertake effective and extensive contact tracing, and support people to self-isolate".

Software for COVID-19 pandemic mitigation takes many forms. It includes mobile apps for contact tracing and notifications about infection risks, vaccine passports, software for enabling – or improving the effectiveness of – lockdowns and social distancing, Web software for the creation of related information services, and research and development software. A common issue is that few apps interoperate, reducing their effectiveness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Undercounting of COVID-19 pandemic deaths by country</span>

Undercounting of COVID-19 pandemic deaths has been witnessed around the world. Global mortality excess estimates by the World Health Organization are significantly different from official figures, pointing to undercounting– "while 1,813,188 COVID-19 deaths were reported in 2020... WHO estimates suggest an excess mortality of at least 3,000,000." The global average for underreporting COVID-19 deaths in cities is 30%. The aim of arriving at a truer death count is ultimately linked to improving national and international abilities and responses to fighting the virus. Undercounting can cause a number of problems such as delay in vaccines to priority populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Kingdom responses to the COVID-19 pandemic</span>

The United Kingdom's response to the COVID-19 pandemic consists of various measures by the healthcare community, the British and devolved governments, the military and the research sector.

References

  1. 1 2 "ZOE government funding has been cancelled, but we're not stopping". covid.joinzoe.com. ZOE Covid Study. 15 March 2022. Retrieved 23 April 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The inside story of the UK's biggest coronavirus symptom tracker app". Wired . 26 March 2020. Archived from the original on 5 May 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  3. ↑ "Coronavirus: Tracking app aims for one million downloads". BBC News . 25 March 2020. Archived from the original on 1 May 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  4. ↑ Chan, Andrew; Spector, Tim (11 May 2020). "Coronavirus: research reveals way to predict infection – without a test". The Conversation. Archived from the original on 12 May 2020. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Researchers release COVID-19 symptom tracker app". ScienceDaily . 5 May 2020. Archived from the original on 6 May 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  6. ↑ "About this Research: FAQs: Will someone make money off my data?". Zoe Covid Study. Covid Symptom Study. Archived from the original on 21 April 2023. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  7. ↑ "Collaborators". Outbreaks Near Me. Archived from the original on 6 August 2023. Retrieved 6 August 2023.
  8. ↑ "King's College London launches Covid-19 symptom reporting app". Digital Health. 25 March 2020. Archived from the original on 3 May 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  9. 1 2 "COVID-19 testing for app users: your questions answered". COVID Symptom Study. 30 April 2020. Archived from the original on 1 May 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  10. ↑ "Expansion of national testing study will offer new COVID-19 insights". GOV.UK. Department of Health and Social Care. 19 August 2020. Archived from the original on 19 August 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  11. ↑ Crouch, Hannah (19 August 2020). "ZOE Covid-19 Symptom Study app awarded £2m government grant". Digital Health. Archived from the original on 26 September 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  12. 1 2 Murgia, Madhumita (31 July 2021). "Tim Spector: the data explorer who uncovered vital clues to Covid" . Financial Times. Archived from the original on 31 July 2021. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  13. ↑ "ZOE Limited". Companies House. Retrieved 25 July 2021.
  14. ↑ "COVID-19 surveillance and immunity studies up to March 2022". GOV.UK. UK Health Security Agency. 8 June 2022. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
  15. ↑ "Introducing the ZOE Health Study". ZOE COVID Study. 5 May 2022. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
  16. 1 2 Menni, Cristina; Valdes, Ana M.; Freidin, Maxim B.; Sudre, Carole H.; Nguyen, Long H.; Drew, David A.; Ganesh, Sajaysurya; Varsavsky, Thomas; Cardoso, M. Jorge; El-Sayed Moustafa, Julia S.; Visconti, Alessia; Hysi, Pirro; Bowyer, Ruth C. E.; Mangino, Massimo; Falchi, Mario; Wolf, Jonathan; Ourselin, Sebastien; Chan, Andrew T.; Steves, Claire J.; Spector, Tim D. (11 May 2020). "Real-time tracking of self-reported symptoms to predict potential COVID-19". Nature Medicine. 26 (7): 1037–1040. doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-0916-2 . ISSN   1546-170X. PMC   7751267 . PMID   32393804. S2CID   218572997.
  17. 1 2 3 "Covid symptom tracker app suggests 350,000 could have untested coronavirus". The Independent . 26 April 2020. Archived from the original on 5 May 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  18. ↑ Wise, Jacqui (20 July 2020). "Covid-19: Study reveals six clusters of symptoms that could be used as a clinical prediction tool". BMJ. 370: m2911. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m2911 . ISSN   1756-1833. PMID   32690476.
  19. ↑ Steves, Claire (1 February 2021). "No evidence for changes in symptoms from new coronavirus variant". COVID Symptom Study. Archived from the original on 3 February 2021. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
  20. 1 2 Mayor, Susan (27 March 2020). "Covid-19: Researchers launch app to track spread of symptoms in the UK". The BMJ . 368: m1263. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m1263 . PMID   32220898. S2CID   214671164. Archived from the original on 10 April 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  21. ↑ "Coronavirus: Five things a Covid-COVID-19 epidemiological research19 symptom-tracking app tells us". BBC News . 23 May 2020. Archived from the original on 23 May 2020. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  22. ↑ "Press release: Increased risk of COVID-19 among healthcare workers". covid.joinzoe.com. Archived from the original on 10 May 2020. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  23. ↑ Drew, David A.; Nguyen, Long H.; Steves, Claire J.; Menni, Cristina; Freydin, Maxim; Varsavsky, Thomas; Sudre, Carole H.; Cardoso, M. Jorge; Ourselin, Sebastien; Wolf, Jonathan; Spector, Tim D.; Chan, Andrew T. (5 May 2020). "Rapid implementation of mobile technology for real-time epidemiology of COVID-19". Science. 368 (6497): 1362–1367. Bibcode:2020Sci...368.1362D. doi:10.1126/science.abc0473. PMC   7200009 . PMID   32371477.
  24. ↑ Sudre, Carole H.; Lee, Karla; Ni Lochlainn, Mary; Varsavsky, Thomas; Murray, Benjamin; Graham, Mark S.; Menni, Cristina; Modat, Marc; Bowyer, Ruth C.E.; Nguyen, Long H.; Drew, David Alden (16 June 2020). "Symptom clusters in Covid19: A potential clinical prediction tool from the COVID Symptom study app". Science Advances. 7 (12): eabd4177. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abd4177. PMC   7978420 . PMID   33741586. S2CID   219700229.
  25. ↑ "Six distinct 'types' of COVID-19 identified". King's College London - News - Spotlight on Research. 17 July 2020. Archived from the original on 18 July 2020. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
  26. ↑ "ZOE - Understand how your body responds to food". Zoe. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  27. ↑ Gray, Chloe (13 April 2023). "I took part in Zoe, the largest nutrition study in the world – this is what I learned about my gut health". Stylist.

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