The Future of Patient-Generated Data for UK Health Research

The uptake of smartphones and wearables has promised major opportunities for clinical care and health research for more than a decade. In theory, people could contribute rich and novel data from their own devices for population health research.

The wide uptake of smartphones and wearables means much larger numbers of the public could have the opportunity to be involved in health research using technology already in their pocket or on their wrist.

In the summer of 2021, 23 stakeholder representatives, including researchers, healthcare professionals, members of the public, research funders and industry partners, participated in two roundtable discussions.

They considered the main opportunities for addressing novel research questions using patient-generated health data, some of the challenges and barriers to realising those opportunities, and developed some recommendations.

In this report, we summarise what needs to be done, and in what way, to realise the future opportunities of patient-generated health data for UK health research.