SENHANCE: A Semantic Web framework for integrating social and hardware sensors in e-Health

Abstract

Self-reported data are very important in Healthcare, especially when combined with data from sensors. Social Networking Sites, such as Facebook, are a promising source of not only self-reported data but also social data, which are otherwise difficult to obtain. Due to their unstructured nature, providing information that is meaningful to health professionals from this source is a daunting task. To this end, we employ Social Network Applications as Social Sensors that gather structured data and use Semantic Web technologies to fuse them with hardware sensor data, effectively integrating both sources. We show that this combination of social and hardware sensor observations creates a novel space that can be used for a variety of feature-rich e-Health applications. We present the design of our prototype framework, SENHANCE, and our findings from its pilot application in the NutriHeAl project, where a Facebook app is integrated with Fitbit digital pedometers for Lifestyle monitoring.