Monitoring the Impact of COVID-19 Isolation Policies on Public Wellness using IoT – A Public Health and Work from Home Perspective

Social isolation is having a significant impact on the quality of life, physical activity, and sleep patterns of our population. While self-isolation and social distancing provide the most successful method for limiting the progression and spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19, we often overlook the impact of these rules on our population. This impact is also observed in the quality of the work environment available for employees working from home, where they often lack the necessary equipment and conditions to comfortably and safely work from home.
Through the use of data ecosystems developed at the UbiLab, we propose to monitor the impact of quarantine rules on household-level and individual-level physical activity, sleep, mental health, and work-related stressors and ergonomics.
During Phase 1, from a public health perspective, the proposed ecosystem would be useful in understanding the impact of COVID-19 in our population, monitoring the ongoing impact and the changes in our behaviours caused by public policies implemented. In Phase 2, our team will explore the use of this data to better inform work from home guidelines.

Faculty Supervisor:

Plinio Pelegrini Morita

Student:

Niloofar Jalali;Aaishwarya Bansal;Kirti Sundar Sahu;Pedro Augusto da Silva e Souza Miranda;Tatiana Silva Bevilacqua

Partner:

Thinktum

Discipline:

Epidemiology / Public health and policy

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Waterloo