Evidation Partners With USC on the Understanding America Study to Characterize Healthy Aging Using Wearables and Real-world Data

Data will be consented and collected directly from a representative cohort of individuals nationwide

SAN MATEO, Calif. & LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Evidation, the company creating new ways to measure and improve health in everyday life, today announced a partnership with USC’s Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research to incorporate wearable device data into the landmark Understanding America Study. The goal of the partnership is to power research that will generate insights into healthy aging. Evidation and USC will collaborate to integrate a robust wearables dataset into extensive survey data that has been collected as part of the Understanding America Study for almost two decades. Evidation and USC have been working together since 2017 and this work expands upon the NIH-funded American Life in Realtime (ALiR) study, an initiative that achieved a nationally representative digital health benchmark dataset.

Launched in 2014 and supported by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Understanding America Study is a nationally representative panel of over 12,000 people across the United States. Administered by USC, UAS offers rich data from a demographically diverse set of participants on topics varying from health and wellness, work, leisure, retirement, social issues, and aging.

Evidation will facilitate the collection of prospective wearable data, including activity and sleep data, from thousands of participants. Layered on top of extensive survey data, this longitudinal wearable data will help unearth answers to key questions regarding how to extend life span, as well as healthspan – the duration someone can be healthy without chronic and debilitating disease or disability.

“Evidation’s decade plus experience consenting, curating, and making sense of wearable data makes them the ideal partner for this important expansion of the Understanding America Study. We’re excited to build on the foundation of data already available as part of UAS to uncover insights that will make it possible to extend and improve healthspan,” said Arie Kapteyn, Professor of Economics and the founding Executive Director of the Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research at the University of Southern California. “We know that Evidation shares our commitment to using the most advanced technology in service of improving people’s health and welfare, and will bring tremendous value to this collaboration.”

Evidation powers health research and engagement programs for some of the world’s leading healthcare organizations and technology companies, making it possible to harness real-world data to deeply understand health experiences rapidly and longitudinally, in large populations. Refined over a decade, Evidation’s measurement and engagement platform helps capture health data from outside the clinic and encourages and rewards participants for taking healthy actions.

About Evidation

Evidation creates new ways to measure and improve health in everyday life—making proactive, personalized, and truly human-centered healthcare possible. By connecting directly with millions of individuals, Evidation harnesses real-world data to deeply understand health experiences, rapidly and at scale. Evidation’s privacy-centric digital health measurement and engagement platform uses data science and machine learning to translate these everyday insights into high-impact health guidance, treatments, and tools. Founded in 2012, Evidation is headquartered in California with employees working around the globe.

About the Understanding America Study

The Understanding America Study (UAS), managed by the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research, is a comprehensive, ongoing research initiative aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the social and economic intricacies of American life. An online panel of more than 12,000 individuals that is representative of the U.S. population enables the UAS to quickly and efficiently explore an array of themes including health, economic behavior, education, political identity, family life, and retirement. This broad and inclusive investigation into American experiences provides vital insights and invaluable data to inform policymakers, researchers, businesses, and the general public, aiding in the creation of more responsive and evidence-based strategies and solutions.