SCC-IRG JST: Active sensing and personalized interventions for pandemic-induced social isolation

社会关系对个人的健康和社区的发展至关重要。在人口老龄化的发达国家，社会孤立是一个日益令人担忧的问题。美国社会工作和社会福利学会将社会孤立称为“一个无声的杀手，对健康的危害与吸烟一样大。”新冠肺炎疫情的爆发极大地加剧了社会孤立的问题，剥夺了老年人与同龄人的个人互动，甚至经常与照顾者的互动。这项建议旨在开发和评估技术-社会解决方案，以增加社区内老年人之间的社会互动，减少社区内的社会孤立程度，同时保持所需的社会距离-在美国和日本非常重要的问题。该项目代表了美国和日本的学术研究人员和社区合作伙伴之间的合作，他们将为将研究成果转化为实践提供一条潜在的途径。虽然这个项目的重点是老年人的社会隔离，但通过这个项目开发的知识可以应用到其他年龄段和精神健康和保健的其他领域。目的是开发一个技术平台和工具，帮助处于社会孤立高危的社区成员重新参与。它将能够提供量身定制的干预措施，在个人一级将社区成员与社区中的同龄人和照顾者联系起来，并提供干预措施，以规划和协调社区一级的服务。这项工作的潜力将在两个截然不同的老年人社区中得到展示，他们都是社会孤立的高危人群，一个在美国，一个在日本。该提案涉及以下技术挑战：(1)确定新的传感模式，以补充已在实地使用的传感器。(2)开发技术和算法来分析收集的状态信息，以足够的可能性预测问题的发生，足够早地让照顾者对问题做出反应。(3)拟议干预措施的个性化，即在运行时根据具体个人调整干预措施，重点放在社区一级的决策上。(4)开发一个将传感器与数据存储和分析引擎集成在一起的平台，确保系统的安全并保护个人隐私。该项目是国家科学基金会和日本科学技术机构的联合合作。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Social connections are essential for individuals' health and the growth of a community. Social isolation is an increasing concern in developed countries with aging populations. The American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare calls social isolation ``a silent killer as dangerous to health as smoking.'' The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic greatly exacerbated the problems of social isolation, depriving older adults of their personal interactions with peers and often even with caregivers. This proposal aims to develop and evaluate techno-social solutions to increase the social interactions between older adults within a community, reducing the level of social isolation within a community, while maintaining the required social distancing --- issues of great importance in the US and Japan. This project represents a collaboration between academic researchers and community partners in the U.S. and Japan, who will provide a potential pathway for transitioning research results to practice. Although this project focuses on social isolation in older adults, knowledge developed through this project can be applied to other age groups and other domains in mental health and healthcare.The aim is to develop a technology platform and tools to facilitate re-engagement of community members at high risk for social isolation. It will enable the delivery of tailored interventions to connect community members with peers and caregivers in the community at the individual level, as well as interventions to plan and coordinate services at the community level. The potential of this work will be demonstrated with two distinctly different communities of older adults at high risk for social isolation, one in the U.S. and one in Japan. This proposal addresses the following technical challenges: (1) Identification of new sensing modalities to complement sensors already used in the field. (2) Develop techniques and algorithms to analyze collected state information to predict with sufficient likelihood the onset of a problem early enough for caregivers to react to the problem. (3) Personalization of the proposed interventions, i.e., adapting interventions to a specific individual at runtime, with a focus on decision-making at the community level. (4) Develop a platform to integrate sensors with data storage and the analysis engine ensuring security of the system and protecting privacy of the individuals.This project is a joint collaboration between the National Science Foundation and the Japan Science and Technology Agency.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.