Wearable biosensors to support vaginal health in post-menopausal women

可穿戴生物传感器支持绝经后女性的阴道健康

• 批准号: ES/X006530/1
• 负责人: Tommaso Busolo
• 金额: $ 6.42万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FX006530%2F1
• 关键词: Wearable; biosensors; support; vaginal; health

Vaginal health has been systematically neglected due to a combination of taboo, inadequate policy, and funding, contributing to continually poor health outcomes for females. In particular, vaginal infections such as bacterial vaginosis can impact over ~25% of post-menopausal female. However, limited medical development has resulted in a lack of available information, products and support, resulting in high recurrence rates of up to 50%. These conditions lead to a lower quality of life and an increased risk towards other complications if left untreated, ranging from urinary tract infections (UTIs) to chronic diseases such as endometriosis. Meanwhile, the medical challenges are compounded by social taboos. Females are made to feel ashamed about their intimate health due to today's societal norms, leading to many not seeking medical assistance when needed. Moreover, ~80% of females aged 50+ in the UK reported instances of not being listened to by healthcare professionals, while only 25% can access appropriate medical services in a timely manner [2]. Given such social barriers to medical access, tools that support at-home self-care approaches for prevention and treatment are highly needed. (Female = women, transgender women, women with transgender experience.) A crucial factor in vaginal health is the vaginal microbiota as it enables prevention of vaginal conditions ranging from bacterial vaginosis to UTIs. However, keeping a healthy microbiota state is challenging since its composition can vary daily, influenced by factors such as hygiene products, sexual activity and medications. This is even more challenging for post-menopausal women due to the declining estrogen levels. Currently, whenever a person wants to check their vaginal health at home, there are two options: a vaginal pH self-test or an at-home vaginal microbiome test. The pH tests have a low price point (<£10) and are accessible through pharmacies, but require an invasive vaginal swab. Importantly, pH alone is insufficient for actionable medical recommendations to improve the microbiota. Moreover, these tests do not offer any educational or support material besides a simple symptom lookup chart. At-home vaginal microbiome tests analyse a self-collected vaginal swab using gene sequencing (e.g., Juno Bio, Evvy). These offer large volumes of health information but are expensive (>£125), have a long lead time (10 days) and only offer a single snapshot in time. Such limitations preclude their frequent use, making them unsuitable for understanding day to day variations in the vaginal microbiota. This project will explore the utility and commercial feasibility of smart wearables to enable rapid, at-home vaginal microbiome testing for the elderly community. We envision our solution as a supportive tool to help females to reconnect with their intimate health, enable proactive self-care and to give them the confidence to seek help when needed. This individual awareness will be a catalyst to breaking the culture of silence surrounding intimate care and bringing female health to the forefront of public discourse, enabling a cultural change in female intimate care. The primary emphasis of this project is to engage with people through focus groups and workshops to better understand current user journeys (e.g., how elderly females seek medical information, what at-home prevention and treatment methods are currently used), and identify existing needs. From this, we will co-design and iteratively test smart wearables prototypes with a small user group. Alongside user engagement, we will progress the core sensing technology to demonstrate operation under idealised lab settings.

由于禁忌、政策不足和资金不足，阴道健康一直被忽视，导致女性健康状况持续不佳。特别是，细菌性阴道病等阴道感染可能影响超过 25% 的绝经后女性。然而，有限的医学发展导致缺乏可用的信息、产品和支持，导致复发率高达 50%。如果不及时治疗，这些疾病会导致生活质量下降，并增加其他并发症的风险，包括尿路感染 (UTI) 和子宫内膜异位症等慢性疾病。与此同时，社会禁忌加剧了医疗挑战。由于当今的社会规范，女性对自己的私密健康感到羞耻，导致许多女性在需要时不寻求医疗帮助。此外，英国约 80% 的 50 岁以上女性表示没有听取医疗保健专业人员的意见，而只有 25% 的女性能够及时获得适当的医疗服务 [2]。鉴于医疗获取方面存在此类社会障碍，非常需要支持家庭自我护理方法进行预防和治疗的工具。 （女性=女性、跨性别女性、有跨性别经历的女性。）阴道健康的一个关键因素是阴道微生物群，因为它可以预防从细菌性阴道病到尿路感染等阴道疾病。然而，保持健康的微生物群状态具有挑战性，因为微生物群的组成每天都会发生变化，受到卫生产品、性活动和药物等因素的影响。由于雌激素水平下降，这对于绝经后女性来说更具挑战性。目前，每当一个人想要在家检查阴道健康状况时，有两种选择：阴道 pH 值自测或家庭阴道微生物组测试。 pH 测试价格较低（<10 英镑），可通过药房购买，但需要侵入性阴道拭子。重要的是，仅靠 pH 值不足以提出改善微生物群的可行医疗建议。此外，除了简单的症状查找表之外，这些测试不提供任何教育或支持材料。家庭阴道微生物组测试使用基因测序分析自行收集的阴道拭子（例如，Juno Bio、Evvy）。这些提供了大量的健康信息，但价格昂贵（> 125 英镑），交付时间长（10 天），并且只能及时提供单个快照。这些限制妨碍了它们的频繁使用，使它们不适合了解阴道微生物群的日常变化。该项目将探索智能可穿戴设备的实用性和商业可行性，以便为老年人社区提供快速的家庭阴道微生物组测试。我们希望我们的解决方案成为一种支持工具，帮助女性重新获得私密健康，实现积极的自我护理，并让她们有信心在需要时寻求帮助。这种个人意识将成为打破围绕亲密护理的沉默文化的催化剂，并将女性健康带到公共话语的最前沿，从而实现女性亲密护理的文化变革。该项目的主要重点是通过焦点小组和研讨会与人们互动，以更好地了解当前的用户旅程（例如，老年女性如何寻求医疗信息，目前使用哪些家庭预防和治疗方法），并确定现有需求。由此，我们将与一小部分用户共同设计和迭代测试智能可穿戴设备原型。除了用户参与之外，我们还将改进核心传感技术，以演示在理想实验室环境下的操作。