AUT scientists launch major global health study
An AUT neuroscience team has embarked on what could become the world’s largest health study, in a bid to tackle the mounting toll of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
The study is being conducted via the Stroke RiskometerTM, an app that allows users to assess their individual stroke risk on a smartphone or tablet. By tapping into the power of mobile technology, scientists hope to gain vast amounts of international data and generate insights that will significantly reduce the devastating impact of diseases such as stroke, diabetes, dementia and heart disease.
AUT’s Professor Valery Feigin says the study, Reducing the International Burden of Stroke Using Mobile Technology (RIBURST), has the potential to save countless lives and billions of dollars worldwide.
“Non-communicable diseases are the leading cause of deaths worldwide and result in serious disability for millions of people. Current primary prevention strategies are simply not effective enough,” says the study lead. “We need a step-change in the care and prevention of major non-communicable diseases, but at present we lack the data that’s critical to attaining that.”
The information collected through the RIBURST Study will allow AUT’s research team to develop predictive algorithms that are unique to different parts of the population and based on modern risk factors.
“By delivering population-specific predictive algorithms plus preventative strategies tailored to different cultural and ethnic groups, we hope to dramatically reduce the burden these diseases place on people, families and health systems around the world,” says Professor Feigin.
With an estimated 1.75 billion smartphone users around the world, the potential scale of the research is immense and could eclipse that of the largest medical experiment in history, a polio study conducted in the 1950s. Field trials for the Salk vaccine involved 1-2 million participants and led to near eradication of the disease, an inspiring outcome for AUT’s RIBURST Study team.