CAN TECHNOLOGY DRIVE HEALTHY HABITS?

The popularity of health tracking technology has accelerated in recent years, with smartphone apps and “wearables” able to gather data on steps taken, distance run, calories burned and other health metrics. How popular is such technology across Asia-Pacific markets and can it help people adopt healthy habits?

The 2018 AIA Healthy Living Index survey sought to find out. In general, people in the region are positive about the motivating force of activity tracking technology: most (68 per cent) consider such devices easy to use and 65 per cent think they motivate positive changes in behaviour.

Usage rates vary by market. Across the region 15 per cent of all adults have tried using activity trackers before but, as may be expected, those in richer economies are more likely to have done so. Almost one in three (30 per cent) in Singapore, one in four in China (25 per cent) and over one in five (23 per cent) in Australia have tried them out, compared to fewer than one person in 20 (under 5 per cent) in each of Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.

Whether or not these trackers work is the subject of ongoing academic study but the consensus appears to be that they can help with healthy habits. A study published in 2017 in Sports Medicine, for instance, suggests step counters can help inactive people increase their activity by 2,500 steps per day. They are far from a panacea though: our survey found that more than one in three people who have tried to use them (37 per cent) no longer do so, owing to issues like the effort and costs involved; some 1 in 4 also say using trackers hasn’t been effective.

Concerns have also grown in recent months about the kind of personal data that tracking technology collects. This illustrates the trade-offs that are often necessary when considering health tech. It goes without saying that it would be highly beneficial and convenient if healthcare professionals could access your health data when it was urgently required. Naturally, though, the security and privacy of such data is paramount, which makes sharing information in digital health records a challenge.

Our research illustrates the delicacy of the issue: 75 per cent of people across the region would be happy to have devices that provide healthcare professionals with ongoing health data, but almost half (49 per cent) do not want their health data kept in a single medical database because they are concerned about it not being secure.

Such concerns are understandable, but they don’t reflect the opinions of people in the region who have direct experience of such technology – as in Singapore. The city’s National Electronic Health Records are about to be made compulsory, and the government has put in place new measures to stop unauthorised parties accessing them. Some 70 per cent of Singaporean respondents prefer to have their medical records kept in one single database than separately among different health care providers, suggesting broad support for the scheme.

Then there is the trade-off between quick but remote or impersonal consultations and waiting longer to see a doctor face-to-face. Rolling out healthcare tech to make diagnoses quicker might be a tough job, even in countries that face a challenge in delivering healthcare services to remote areas (such as the Indonesian archipelago or the Australian outback). Our survey shows less than one in four (24 per cent) across the region prefer doctor consultations over the phone or internet than face-to-face interaction.

That said, just under half (44 per cent) are also open to using artificial intelligence (AI) for medical consultations if it meant that they could be diagnosed or treated more quickly – with majorities open to this in each of China (65 per cent), Malaysia (56 per cent), Korea (59 per cent), Taiwan (52 per cent), Thailand (65 per cent), Macau (57 per cent) and Sri Lanka (53 per cent). Given the advantages, it might not be long before “robo-health” services, together with other health tech, are helping people live more healthily across the Asia-Pacific region.