The World Diabetes Distress Study: An open research initiative on the use of e-health and digital technologies at the service of diabetes research

The WDDS project aims to study the complex interplays between lifestyle, psychological factors and biological parameters (such as glycemic and blood pressure variabilities, pulse wave velocity) that are key in the dailymanagement of type 1 or type 2 diabetes and the development of diabetes-related complications.
To do so, I will implement comprehensive observational studies to combine patients’ ​digitosomes​, an emerging concept gathering all the data generated online by an individual (ie. data from social media such as Twitter, wearables or connected medical devices), with clinical and epidemiological data. I will therefore be able to identify new patterns of key parameters, and study both their determinants and their associations with diabetes distress, quality of life and diabetes-related complications.
I propose 1) to use an ​Artificial Intelligence approach and Big Data analyses​ and 2) to develop an ​Open platform where research materials (databases, algorithms, tools such as a chatbot that interacts with participants on socialmedia, statistical methodologies, publications...) for diabetes research will be freely available to the international research community (interested in diabetes but easily adaptable to other chronic diseases).
Moving from a world where few patients have been characterized by only a few recent measurements of fasting glucose levels or glycated hemoglobin, to a world where we will be able to simultaneously study thousands of points of various key parameters on large samples of patients will profoundly change the way we characterize individuals living with diabetes. This is a real game changer that we must anticipate in order to provide solid independent results,transferable to patients.
This project will ​pave the way for modern research on diabetes at the interface between computer and data science, epidemiology, and medical research​.