
The PRIDE Study app will deliver survey questions straight to peoples' smartphones in order to gain new insights into the health needs of the LGBT community.
It’s been a big month gay rights, and a new piece of technology has allowed scientists to begin conducting one of the most ambitious medical surveys to date. According to a report from the Economic Times, a new smartphone application will pose a list of health survey questions to members of the LGBT community. The best part? The survey will be available for download in Apple’s app store.
The survey will utilize software called ResearchKit, which was developed by a group of programmers at the University of California, San Francisco. ResearchKit technology links up with the iPhone’s PRIDE App, which collects and organizes data on key LGBT health issues. Previously, ResearchKit was used to aggregate and analyze data from studies on diabetes, breast cancer, asthma and cardiovascular disease.
One of the largest threats posed to LGBT communities remains HIV, a deadly virus that sabotages the body’s immune system. Late detection or failure to detect the virus altogether are the biggest factors influencing the spread of the disease, and the PRIDE Study will collect information about the mental and physical health issues faced by members of the LGBT community.
Scientists hope to understand the way these historically understudied populations tackle key health issues, which determine health outcomes in a number of ways. They believe that surveys specifically geared towards these communities, and administered through smartphone, will give them enough information to begin providing more specialized and effective treatments.
The PRIDE Study’s co-director, Mitchell Lunn, is hopeful that the study will highlight the relationship, if any, between sexual orientation and physical and mental health. The study seems like it will be a great success, bringing a higher standard of health care to a population that has been tragically understudied.
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