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Data4Life supports developing an early warning system for crises with the digital study DAKI Health

  • As a consortium partner of the DAKI-FWS project, Data4Life contributes to the early detection of future pandemics and natural disasters

  • With DAKI Health, the German population can actively participate in the research project by donating health-related data

Potsdam (Germany), October 20, 2022. The nonprofit health company Data4Life announces the launch of its new digital study, DAKI Health. Over a period of two years, anyone can donate health-related data on disease symptoms, risk contacts, and corona tests throughout Germany. DAKI Health is part of the DAKI-FWS research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action. Together with the projects of other partners such as the Robert Koch Institute, the Hasso Plattner Institute, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and NET CHECK, Data4Life contributes to the development of a health database. In combination with further data sources and with the help of artificial intelligence, a national early warning system is being developed that can detect pandemic outbreaks and climate extremes such as floods or heat waves at an early stage.

Modern public health research using digital questionnaires

The impact of pandemics not only on human health, but also on society and the economy, has become ever clearer since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. The pandemic has shown that we, as a society, often lack the data necessary to provide a basis for well-founded decision making. By applying digital and location-independent data collection, DAKI Health is collecting information outside classic surveillance systems from people who are not seeking medical care. This makes it possible to continuously map information about the health status of the population over a long period of time. Pseudonymized health data collected by Data4Life will be analyzed and evaluated in combination with weather and mobility data to help identify crisis situations earlier and better assess their development.

"It is essential to bring together data across disciplines and make it researchable so we can identify challenges facing society at an earlier stage and actively take countermeasures," says PD Dr. med. Cornelius Remschmidt, Chief Medical Officer at Data4Life. "In the coming years, we will face more crisis events involving both public health and climate phenomena, so it's high time to develop meaningful analytical systems." 

Detecting crises earlier across disciplines with artificial intelligence

As part of the DAKI-FWS project (German acronym for "Data and AI-supported early warning system to stabilize the German economy"), DAKI Health helps companies to be better positioned in future crisis situations. By linking and analyzing data using AI technologies, actions can be derived to protect lives and jobs, and the infrastructure. The project is funded as part of the "AI Innovation Competition" of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action with approximately 12 million euros for a period of three years.

The Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI) serves as consortium leader for the project. In addition to Data4Life, Budelmann Elektronik GmbH, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Hasso Plattner Institute, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Logiball GmbH, NET CHECK GmbH, Robert Koch Institute, Zuse Institute Berlin, the German Climate Computing Center, and Esri Deutschland GmbH are involved. Associated partners also include the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Here Technologies, Schönborner Armaturen and the Deutscher Wetterdienst.

Anyone aged 18 or older living in Germany can participate in the study by registering at www.data4life.care or in the Data4Life app.


About Data4Life

D4L data4life gGmbH is a nonprofit healthtech organization funded by the Hasso Plattner Foundation. With an international team, Data4Life is working towards its vision of a world where health data is ready for research in the areas of public health and personalized medicine to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. In pursuit of these goals, Data4Life has been collaborating since 2017 with medical experts from renowned research institutions worldwide, including various university hospitals, the Robert Koch Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, and the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institut.

Data4Life was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Potsdam, Germany with offices in Berlin and Singapore. Since July 2019, Data4Life is certified according to ISO 27001 based on the IT-Grundschutz by the German Federal Office for Information Security. More details on www.data4life.care.

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