STTR Phase I: Toward the first novel multi-sensor smart wearable system for hot flash detection

这项小企业技术转让计划（STTR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是帮助更年期妇女。大多数女性都会经历更年期，这是一个复杂的生物行为生命阶段，持续了她们生命的三分之一，经常伴随着一系列影响她们健康、生活质量、人际关系和生产力的复杂症状。最常见和破坏性的更年期症状是潮热，影响80%的妇女，并持续长达10-20年，平均持续时间为7年。不幸的是，缺乏对更年期症状管理的充分支持，很少有医生在更年期护理方面接受过充分的培训，无法提供适当的护理。重要的是，目前市场上还没有自动测量潮热和其他更年期症状的解决方案，这是跟踪和管理女性健康以及在这个充满挑战的人生阶段支持健康的关键限制。在美国，超过5000万45-55岁的女性患有潮热。据估计，全球潮热市场每年约为95亿美元，包括替代、非激素和激素治疗方案，其中美国约占全球潮热市场总额的一半，即47.5亿美元。该技术旨在解决关键的科学、技术和商业挑战，建立第一个具有成本效益的新型精确可穿戴系统，用于更年期潮热检测。拟议的可穿戴系统将成为管理更年期症状的更广泛的基于移动的数字平台的关键组成部分。该小型企业技术转移计划（STTR）第一阶段项目第一阶段将允许实施和评估使用基于手腕的多传感器（商用可穿戴设备中常用的无创传感器）的有效性，以在实时和自由生活条件下（例如，在睡眠和清醒期间，在存在噪声信号的情况下）自动分类潮热。将使用合成数据和真实数据的组合来实现目标。该系统的目标是在不同的行为、生理和环境条件下，针对金标准方法（胸骨皮肤电导波动的专家评估），在热潮热分类中达到90%的准确率。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) Phase I project is to help women undergoing menopause. Most women undergo menopause, a complex biobehavioral life stage that spans one-third of their life, frequently accompanied by a complex array of symptoms affecting their health, quality of life, relationships, and productivity. The most common and disruptive menopause symptoms are hot flashes, affecting 80% of women, and persisting for up to 10-20 years, with an average duration of 7 years. Unfortunately, there is a lack of adequate support for menopause symptom management, with very few physicians receiving adequate training in menopausal care and unable to provide appropriate care. Importantly, no current solution exists on the market to automatically measure hot flashes and other menopause symptoms over time, a critical limitation in tracking and managing women’s health, and supporting wellness across this challenging life stage. In the U.S., over 50 million women ages 45-55 have hot flashes. The global market for hot flashes is estimated at $9.5B annually and includes alternative, non-hormonal, and hormonal treatment options, with the U.S. accounting for about half-or $4.75B of the total global hot flash market. The proposed technology aims to solve key scientific, technical, and commercial challenges, to build the first novel cost-effective accurate wearable system for menopausal hot flash detection. The proposed wearable system will be an integrated key component of a broader mobile-based digital platform for managing menopause symptoms.This Small Business Technology Transfer Program (STTR) Phase I project Phase I will allow the implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness of using wrist-based multi-sensors, common noninvasive sensors used in commercially available wearable devices, to automatically classify hot flashes, in real-time and free-living conditions (e.g., during sleep and wake, in the presence of noise signals). A combination of synthetic and real-world data will be used to achieve the aims. The system targets 90% accuracy in hot flash classification, across different behavioral, physiological and environmental conditions, against the gold standard method (expert evaluation of fluctuation in sternum skin conductance).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.