The Fenland Remote Assessment Study is a feasibility study where you can help shape the future of research. It will investigate how we can conduct research remotely using web, smartphone and wearable technology without you needing to come to our clinical facilities. It will enhance the information about health behaviours and exposures through remote assessment of physical activity, fitness and their environmental context in free-living.
There is no clinical visit for this study – everything can be done remotely from home. The study has several components, which are undertaken at specific points over one month as shown in the diagram below.
If you have been invited to take part in the Fenland Remote Assessment Study, please read the Participant Information (download as a PDF).
This phase of the study does not use the bespoke Fenland Study app. The smartphone apps used for this phase of the study are freely available on the Apple store for iOS and Play store for Android. It is therefore possible for friends and family to try out some of the measurements, although these would not be part of the Fenland Study per se.
Who is in the study?
A representative group of participants from Phase 3 of the Fenland Study who agreed to be re-approached for future research will be invited for the Fenland Remote Assessment Study.
Measurements
All the measurements can be done from home using a wearable smartwatch, smartphone apps and web forms. We will send you notifications by email and SMS when it is time to do these measurements. Smartwatches will be posted to your address.
Watch Fenland Remote Assessment videos.
You can watch the full series of videos explaining the measurements and the smartwatch apps used to take them on our Fenland Remote Assessment YouTube video list.
We will give you a Google Pixel Watch 2 to wear for 1 month. You will need to connect it to an Android device (which we can lend you) to ensure the time is correct, and you need to also connect it to your WiFi to transfer the data to us.
You will need to charge the watch once or twice a day; if the battery goes below 10%, the watch will stop recording data. We recommend charging the watch near your WiFi router as that helps with data transfer. Below are instructions and a video showing you how to use the watch. You can keep the watch after the study.
This is a collaboration with Google. Study procedures are designed to ensure that you cannot be identified from the data we collect on you and share with Google.
The video below shows how to use Bluetooth to connect your Android phone to the Google Pixel Watch 2. If you have an iPhone, we will have done the Blutooth connection for you on the Android device that we have included in your package; place this device close to where you charge your watch
Please keep the Android device charged and on, and connected to Wifi (which will sync it to internet time).
The Pixel watch measures heart rate with optical sensors. We will compare this to heart rate measured electrically using a chest sensor (Actiheart) in a subsample of participants.
If selected, we will ask you to wear an Actiheart monitor (on your chest), for 48 hours whilst wearing the Pixel watch on your wrist. We will send you the Actiheart in the post along with some ECG pads and instructions on how to fit this to your chest. Our video below will also show you how to fit the monitor to your chest.
The purpose of this is to allow us to compare the heart rate measures from the light-based wrist watch to the electricity based chest monitor. We only need a few days' worth of data for this, and you can then take the ECG pads off and send the Actiheart back to us in the envelope provided (the ECG pads can be discarded)
Download the BreathNow app (iOS) (Android). This app is used for the location measurements in this study and for sharing physical activity data on your phone.
Watch a video below to show you how to set up this app. Please note that the app may look different to what is shown in the video.
Track your location via the free BreathNow app for one week at the end of the 1 month period. This allows us to estimate your exposure to air pollution and other factors in our environment. The app only stores location data when your phone updates its location so it does not impact on battery life.
The video below will show you how to do this. It is vitally important that you correctly enter your participant ID and also enter ‘Fenland’ in the Study box. When prompted during set up to “Allow BreathNow to use your location?”, please select “Allow While Using the App” then select “Change to Always Allow”. This is so the app can track continuously rather than when the app is open and will give us more accurate results. You may be asked a few days later to verify that you are OK for the app to use your location – please allow.
Share the physical activity data (e.g. step count) on your phone with us using the BreathNow app. If you already have a smartwatch connected with your phone you can also share that data with us. You will need to choose what data fields you wish to share and you need to allow some apps to talk to each other – this can be a bit complicated so we have made guides to help.
Measure your heart rate response to a 5-minute standardised step test that you can do at home or in your local gym. The audio prompt with the stepping rate can be found here. These data can be used to estimate your fitness.
Make a note of the step height and the time you performed the test and tell us in the LAVA tool (see below).
Step-test procedure
The step-test is a sub-maximal exercise test, during which we will measure your heart rate. This will be a 5-minute activity, followed by a 1-minute seated recovery. Please make sure a seat is close by and available for the end of the test. During the test you will need to follow voice commands which will take you through stepping up and down a step. A normal staircase step should be fine, or any step of approximately 15cm.
You should stop the test if you experience any pain, discomfort or dizziness or if you are struggling to keep to the step frequency required.
Completing the step test
iOS smartphone users: iOS users should be able to access the step-test via the BreathNow app. Alternatively you can play the audio file from our website linked below.
Android smartphone users: Android smartphone users will need to access the audio file for the step-test here.
Here’s a video showing you how to do the step test.
Measure your heart rate response to a self-selected exercise test that you can do at home or in your local gym. If you also tell us how hard you were working, e.g. the speed and incline of a treadmill or the wattage of an exercise bike, we can also use these data to estimate your fitness. Make a note of these details when you are doing your test and you can enter them when you explore your data in the LAVA tool (see below).
It is vitally important that you charge the watch more regularly (and for longer) over the next few days to ensure we receive the data from the watch so you can fully explore and annotate your data.
Here’s a video showing you how (using a treadmill as an example exercise).
Explore your own data on our secure web tool that plots your location measurements on a map alongside your movements and heart rate data.
You can also provide additional contextual information about specific time segments if you wish. We call this the LAVA tool – Location Activity Visualisation and Annotation. Watch a video below to show you how to use it.
In order to use this tool, we need to be sure it is you who are logging in to view your data. You will need the username and password that we have emailed you, plus a token that changes every time you log in.
This system is called multifactor authentication and it is similar to what you may use for online banking. The token is generated by an authenticator app such as Microsoft Authenticator or Google Authenticator. The video below shows you how to set this up for the LAVA tool.
