De Santo, Alessio

2023, Bezençon, Valéry, Lanz, Bruno, De Santo, Alessio, Holzer, Adrian

2022, De Santo, Alessio, Farah, Juan, Martínez, Marc, Moro, Arielle, Bergram, Kristoffer, Purohit, Aditya Kumar, Felber, Pascal, Gillet, Denis, Holzer, Adrian

2021-1-5, De Santo, Alessio, Moro, Arielle, Kocher, Bruno, Holzer, Adrian

2019-12-9, De Santo, Alessio, Holzer, Adrian

Tobacco still kills more than 7 million people each year. Research points to several evidence-based interventions to support smoking cessation which, if applied widely, could considerably reduce premature deaths. There is a huge range of mobile apps targeting this concern, which could potentially be powerful catalysts to provide this support. Yet it is unclear how much of their design is evidence-based and how effective they are. To address this issue, this paper provides an analysis of 99 popular smoking cessation apps. The results show that only two apps come from a credible source, provide support for user engagement through advanced motivational affordances and have been evaluated for efficacy.

2022-11-14, De Santo, Alessio, Moro, Arielle, Kocher, Bruno, Holzer, Adrian

2021-6-30, De Santo, Alessio, Maalouf, Eliane, Cotofrei, Paul

2020-4-27, De Santo, Alessio, Holzer, Adrian

The Semantic Web can be defined as an extension of the current Web, in which data is given well-defined meaning, better-enabling computers and people to work together. Linked Data (LD) has been envisioned as an essential element for the Semantic Web, listing a set of best practices for publishing and connecting structured data on the Web. Enabling humans to interact with this data is a crucial and challenging step to bring the Semantic Web forward. In order to better understand how the Human-Computer Interaction community has contributed to this effort, this late-breaking work presents a review focusing on the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) venues. Our findings show that despite LD being a topic of interest to a variety of stakeholders, there are missing possibilities for end-users to query, browse and visualize LD, underlying the need for further investigations.

2022, De Santo, Alessio, Holzer, Adrian

Les maladies non transmissibles restent la principale cause de décès dans le monde, elles tuent 41 millions de personnes chaque année, ce qui représente 71% de tous les décès dans le monde. Selon l’Organisation Mondiale de la Santé, des interventions simples, permettant de modifier le comportement des individus, auraient pu éviter nombre de ces tragédies. Parmi les facteurs de risque, le tabac est à lui seul responsable de plus de 8 millions de décès par an. La recherche met en évidence plusieurs interventions basées sur des preuves scientifiques pour soutenir le sevrage tabagique qui, si elles étaient appliquées à grande échelle, permettraient de réduire considérablement les décès prématurés. Ces interventions comprennent à la fois des conseils et un soutien comportemental. Il existe des systèmes numériques qui pourraient être de puissants catalyseurs pour fournir ce soutien. Pourtant, bon nombre de questions sur la manière dont ils affectent les comportements et sur la façon dont ils pourraient être améliorés restent sans réponse.
Cette thèse explore le support numérique pour les interventions comporte- mentales en matière de santé à travers six études réparties en trois parties. La partie I, vise à fournir une compréhension du support numérique pour les interventions de santé à travers deux études. La première étude présente le paysage des applications mobiles pour le sevrage tabagique, tandis que la seconde étudie les communautés en ligne de sevrage tabagique. La partie II étudie comment les systèmes numériques peuvent tirer parti de la gamification pour soutenir la conception d’interventions efficaces. La première étude porte sur l’efficacité d’une escape room numérique comme outil de prévention des addictions et des comportements à risque. La seconde étude exploite la gamification pour engager et améliorer les performances d’une population d’étudiants, tout en les empêchant d’adopter un comportement indésirable particulier. La partie III étudie comment gérer les données pertinentes sous- jacentes dans le contexte des interventions en matière de santé et de com- portement. Une première étude propose une méthodologie qui pourrait per- mettre l’individualisation des données statistiques de la santé publique suisse. Une telle individualisation est potentiellement une première étape pour offrir un retour d’information personnalisé et des pistes d’action appropriée aux individus souhaitant améliorer leur comportement en matière de santé. Une deuxième étude passe en revue la littérature qui examine les techniques existantes de visualisation et d’interaction avec les Linked Data, une solution technologique intéressante pour obtenir cette vue individualisée des données statistiques de la santé publique.
Les conclusions générales de cette thèse suggèrent que le processus de changement de comportement en matière d’arrêt du tabac peut être soutenu par des artefacts numériques. Peu d’applications mobiles offrent un sou- tien fondé sur des preuves scientifiques, engageant et crédible, mais les communautés numériques de désaccoutumance au tabac offrent un soutien qui peut être considéré comme efficace pour les personnes qui veulent arrêter de fumer. La gamification s’est avérée être utile dans les interventions de prévention aux addictions, permettant de transmettre des connaissances et d’influencer les comportements. De plus, les éléments de gamification per- mettent aux individus de s’engager dans des activités et d’améliorer leurs performances, tout en les détournant des comportements indésirables. Ce dernier résultat pourrait être très utile lorsqu’il est appliqué aux fumeurs qui sont déterminés à ne pas rechuter alors qu’ils font une tentative de sevrage tabagique. Des efforts de sensibilisation et de feedback personnalisé, spécifiques à la situation de santé de chaque individu, doivent encore être entrepris. Actuellement, les possibilités d’automatiser, de visualiser et d’interagir avec ces données personnalisées, permettant de mieux comprendre sa propre situation et de la comparer à des profils similaires, sont encore peu étudiées et ouvrent la voie à de nouvelles perspectives de recherche. ABSTRACT : Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are still the leading cause of death world- wide. NCDs kill 41 million individuals each year, accounting for 71% of all deaths. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) simple interventions, allowing individuals to change their behavior, might have prevented many of these tragedies. Among the various risk factors, tobacco alone is responsible for more than 8 million deaths per year. Research points to several evidence-based interventions to support smoking cessation which, if applied widely, would considerably reduce premature deaths. Such interventions include providing advice and behavioral support. Digital systems that could be powerful catalysts to provide this support exist. But questions about how they affect behaviors and how they could be improved remain unresolved.
This thesis explores digital support for health behavioral interventions through six studies split into three parts. Part I, aims to provide an under- standing of digital support for health interventions through two studies. The first study provides a landscape of mobile applications for smoking cessation, while the second investigates digital smoking cessation communities. Part II investigates how digital systems can leverage gamification to sup- port the design of effective health interventions. The first study investigates the effectiveness of a digital escape room as a prevention tool for addictions and for risky behaviors. The second study leverages gamification to engage and to improve performance of a population of students, while holding them back from engaging in a particular unwanted behavior. Part III investigates how the underlying relevant data in the context of health behavioral interventions should be managed. A first study proposes a methodology that could allow the individualization of Swiss public health statistical data. Such individualization is potentially a first step in providing personalized feed- back and appropriate courses of action to individuals wishing to improve their health behavior. A second study reviews the literature that examines existing techniques for visualizing and interacting with Linked Data, a technological solution of interest for obtaining this individualized view of Swiss public health statistical data.
The overall findings of this thesis suggest that the process of smoking cessation behavior change can be supported by digital artifacts. Few mobile apps offer evidence-based, engaging and credible support, but digital smoking cessation communities offer support that can be considered effective for people who want to stop smoking. Gamification has been found to help in health prevention interventions allowing knowledge to be conveyed and behavior to be influenced. Also, game design elements allow individuals to engage in activities and improve their performance, while diverting them from un- wanted behavior. This latter result could be of great benefit when applied to smokers who are determined not to relapse while making a smoking cessation attempt. Efforts to raise awareness and provide personalized feedback specific to each individual’s situation still need to be undertaken. Currently the possibilities to automate, visualize and interact with such personalized data, allowing to better understand one’s own situation and to compare it with similar profiles, are still understudied and they open the path to further investigations.

2021-6-1, Cotofrei, Paul, De Santo, Alessio, Maalouf, Eliane, Stoffel, Kilian

In the context of a decentralized approach for health data resources, a central metadata repository becomes essential for the identification/description of the necessary resources. A Swiss Health Metadata Repository is expected to enable multiple advantages, namely: to provide a single entry point for searching/retrieving health-related resources; to help identify possible semantic linking between data sources; to provide a consistent data catalog ensured by the use of standardized vocabularies/ontologies; to enable potential exchange of experience and know-how between health data-related projects in Switzerland; and to increase the capacity of research groups to share/access/analyse health related data. This policy brief focuses on the implementation aspects of a proof-of-concept proto-type for Swiss Health Metadata Repository.

2020-1-31, Cotofrei, Paul, Maalouf, Eliane, De Santo, Alessio, Stoffel, Kilian

The Swiss Health System is a complex system with different groups of actors for which data is collected and analyzed using various methods, leading to a large heterogeneity and dispersion of available data. The specificities of a Swiss Health System favor a hybrid infrastructure to manage the heterogeneity and dispersion of Swiss health-related data. This policy brief shows the importance of a metadata management infrastructure to identify and describe health data resources and highlights several essential key elements for the design of a metadata repository and also raises important practical questions.