Xing receives NSF Grant with researchers from CAS and Nursing

Guoliang Xing, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Michigan State University, Wei Peng, Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University, and Barbara Smith, Professor of Nursing at Michigan State University, in collaboration with Jina Huh, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics at University of California-San Diego School of Medicine, have been awarded a four-year NSF grant titled "Unobtrusive Sensing and Motivational Feedback for Family Wellness".

This project is to design, develop, and evaluate an innovative family routine sensing and feedback system called FRESH (Family Routine, Education, and Sensing Health), which empowers families to actively engage in preventing child obesity and improving family wellness. Family routines, such as sleep, screen viewing, family dinner, and physical activity, are critical predictors of child obesity. While many mobile health devices focused on motivating individuals to pursue healthy behaviors, systems that take a family- and sensor-based approach have been under explored. This project will develop and evaluate unobtrusive sensing technology for monitoring family routines using off-the-shelf mobile devices such as smartphones and wearables, and formatively assess designing visual and textual feedback in the FRESH system. The family's progress toward improved routine will be reflected through a virtual pet and visual metaphors. Families will receive automated feedback and suggestions for improving their routine, and family members will also see how other families are doing compared to them for encouragement and insights. Overall, this project will significantly advance the state of the art in mobile systems, ubiquitous sensing, human-centered computing, and health informatics by developing new methods and paradigms of clinical support that engage all family members and a community of families in improving child and family health.

(Date Posted: 2016-09-15)