PREMUS 2025: 12th International Scientific Conference on the Prevention of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders
PREMUS 2025: 12th International Scientific Conference on the Prevention of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders
Evaluation and monitoring of general health through smartphone applications in public sector administrative employees in Brazil: a study protocol
2Governo do Estado do Espírito Santo, Vitoria/ES, Brazil
Text
Introduction: The technology sector has grown rapidly in recent years, where during the pandemic, users sought self-care applications to maintain their health. Currently, there are several reliable applications available to assess general health. Combining this technology in favor of the working public would be a quick, practical, and low-cost way to evaluate and monitor the health of this population in real-time and remotely.
Methods: This is a study protocol lasting 8 weeks, where we will evaluate and monitor general health through smartphone applications (level of physical activity, sleep quality, and screen time) of approximately 40 workers of both genders, aged over 18, from the administrative sector of a public agency. The evaluation and monitoring of the workers will be done via smartphone applications, assessing the last seven days of use, using direct measurement to quantify the level of physical activity (using the Step Counter app (ITO Technologies, Inc.)), which will provide information (via the device’s accelerometer) such as daily steps, calories, distance, and time of physical activity performed daily, weekly, and monthly. Sleep will be assessed through the Sleep Cycle app (Sleep Cycle-AB), which will provide information on sleep quality (monitoring sleep using the device’s microphone — just placing it on a table next to the bed), tracking sleep patterns, detecting snoring, nighttime talking, coughing, sounds, and waking the user during the lightest sleep phase. Screen time will be monitored through the smartphone’s own system (iOS or Android), where both systems use the same information on usage over the last 7 days: total usage time, daily average, and time spent on social media. The monitoring of physical activity level, sleep quality, and screen time will be evaluated weekly (last 7 days), allowing us to correlate these factors. The evaluator will contact the participants weekly to collect data remotely through screenshots of the app results.
Results: It is expected that through evaluation and monitoring via applications, we will obtain reliable, low-cost, and easily accessible data to outline the health profile of the participants and thus develop effective health intervention strategies for workers, both inside and outside the workplace.
Discussion: Bringing easily accessible technology, low cost, and real-time data for the evaluation of workers is an important milestone in the innovation of occupational health.
Conclusion: This study will allow for an evaluation with direct data, easily accessible, low-cost, and conducted remotely, providing real-time and current data on the general health of workers, bringing innovation to the field.