American Lung Association Joins Worldwide Effort to Enroll Citizen Scientists for Smartphone-based COVID-19 Study

To better address and track the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the American Lung Association has announced a partnership with Northwestern University and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to engage adults in real-time, smartphone-based data collection as part of the new COVID-19 Citizen Science (CCS) effort initiated by UCSF. CCS aims to attract a critical mass of participants around the world in order to uncover scientifically significant trends about the current coronavirus pandemic.

Anyone 18 years of age or older is encouraged to download the free and secure app for enrollment. The app prompts participants each day to answer a few routine questions about COVID-19 exposure and potentially related symptoms. Collectively, these data could help researchers gain insight into how the virus is spreading in hopes of reducing future infections.

“Our organization is largely fueled by timely and relevant research,” said Harold Wimmer, American Lung Association President and CEO. “The COVID-19 Citizen Science study takes research to the next level by harnessing power in numbers. We’re thrilled to contribute to this promising project, helping enroll more participants and gather valuable data needed to curb the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency.”

Added Mark Pletcher, M.D., MPH, professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the director of informatics and research innovation at the UCSF Clinical and Translational Science Institute, “We really need help from people out there in the community. If enough people are willing to share data, we can follow the spread of COVID-19 to ultimately identify ways to predict and decrease the number of new infections.”

The Lung Association’s involvement with CCS is the newest part of its multi-tiered response to this lung health pandemic. Earlier this month, the organization announced its COVID-19 Action Initiative committing $25 million to address COVID-19 and other emerging respiratory viruses.

For more information about the COVID-19 Citizen Science study, as well as to access the app and enroll, visit Lung.org/citizen-science. Journalists seeking to arrange an interview with a research or medical expert on lung health, COVID-19 or other lung diseases, contact Stephanie Goldina at 312-801-7629 or [email protected].