Our traditional means for communicating information about the weather and environmental exposures has been via a broadcast or push model that informs a broad collection of people of risk in a public health approach. There is always going to be a place for this approach because it informs a community broadly of the collective risk of weather and environmental impacts.
One of the great opportunities that mobile health apps present is the ability to engage with the user with information that is specifically relevant to them, that is personalized. So, we collect information on the weather and environmental exposure through these same means, but we try to associate risk based on the person’s prior experience of symptoms in association with the weather and the environment in a feedback loop of real world evidence. In this manner, the determinant of risk is an individual’s sensitivity to the weather and environmental exposures, based on prior experience, and their subsequent susceptibility to experiencing another symptom.
This is the power of pull. We’re no longer just pushing data and information, but we’re ascertaining knowledge over time about how we are uniquely experiencing symptoms in relation to the environment, and thus are able to translate that knowledge into action. When combined with other data and information inputs, we’re able to connect our individual sensitivity to exposure and susceptibility to experiencing symptoms with the treatment regimens that have been prescribed.
This is the great revolution that digital health avails us in that we are able to recognize personalized exposure health and, ultimately, prescribe precision medicine that reduces the susceptibility of an individual to experience symptoms when confronted by exposures for which they are sensitive. DailyBreath helps you record symptoms, one symptom at a time, in relation to the weather and environment. Each symptom contributes to your own understanding of exposure health, but also contributes to the largest data platform for delivering environmental insights for better health outcomes. Download DailyBreath to share your asthma journey for the benefit of your peers in helping everyone breathe easier one symptom at a time.