The SLOfit team continues to build its knowledge and expertise upon its vast experience participating and leading complex research studies.
The common thread found within each of these research projects is an ability of the SLOfit research team to receive and reciprocate its knowledge on how physical activity, physical fitness and maintaining an active lifestyle can affect overall health, prevent disease and increase everyone’s quality of life.
1) SmartCHANGE
Predicting Chronic Disease Risk with Artificial Intelligence
The SmartCHANGE Project – an innovative solution to radically reduce the risk of chronic non-communicable diseases.
Sustainable Development Goal Indicators: Health and Well-being, Quality Education, Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, Partnership for the Goals.
While the future seems like something we can only guess at, the Jožef Stefan Institute, in collaboration with the SLOfit research group from the Faculty of Sport at the University of Ljubljana, is developing an innovative solution as part of this Horizon Europe program. Smart Change will use artificial intelligence to better predict and, through personalized interventions, radically reduce the risk of developing chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular, metabolic diseases, and various forms of cancer.
The project, entitled "AI-based long-term health risk evaluation for driving behaviour change strategies in children and youth",and with the acronym SmartCHANGE, will focus on developing a more effective way to predict NCDs in children and adolescents into adulthood. The deleterious triggers for these diseases are often present in youth, but are not necessarily detected in time with current diagnostic methods.
Researchers will use advanced technologies and innovative approaches in this project. With AI tools, they will use multiple datasets on 24-hour behavioral patterns, physical fitness, biomarkers, and the prevalence of NCDs to develop models that can accurately predict the risk of developing these diseases in adulthood for children and adolescents. To achieve this, two applications will be developed: one for healthcare professionals and another for citizens. The purpose of both is to display health risks, stratified by risk factors, along with recommended behavioral changes to reduce them, in a way that is suitable for the specific target group.
The newly-developed solution will be validated through a proof-of-concept study that will take place in four countries, involving various living environments, including family, school, primary and holistic care. It will be supported by dissemination and communication activities especially tailored to the selected target groups. One of these test locations will be in Slovenia, which will be implemented within the SLOfit system. This scientific advancement will allow all SLOfit users to better understand the development of NCD risks, fundamentally changing how health risks are addressed, and ultimately reducing the costs these diseases impose on the primary healthcare system whilst also improving people's productivity and quality of life.
2) JA PreventNCD - Together against chronic diseases with innovative physical activity monitoring
Sustainable Development Goal Indicators: Health and Well-being, Reduced Inequalities, Quality Education, Partnerships for the Goals
What if there was a way to effectively reduce the incidence of various types of cancer and other chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) before they even have a chance to develop? The JA PreventNCD project, which includes the SLOfit research group from the Faculty of Sport at the University of Ljubljana, addresses exactly this challenge.
Cancer and other NCDs represent a significant portion of the disease burden in Europe, and they are largely preventable. JA PreventNCD (Joint Action on Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases) presents a collaborative European approach that uses coordinated strategies and policies to prevent chronic non-communicable diseases, with a focus on individual and social risk factors.
The project's key goal is to minimize the fragmentation and duplication of efforts and to involve national authorities at various levels to increase the impact of the measures taken. A crucial aspect is also the rigorous evaluation of these measures, which helps authorities prioritize the most effective prevention strategies.
The SLOfit research group plays a strategic role in this project. Using their expertise, they help harmonize protocols for monitoring physical activity and sedentary behavior using advanced technology—accelerometers. This harmonisation process will allow researchers to better obtain precise, comparable, and comprehensive data, which national authorities can then use to implement targeted- and scientifically-grounded preventive measures.
The JA PreventNCD project goes a step further, by using a life-cycle approach to address fundamental social risk factors, thereby reducing social inequalities. To this end, a European infrastructure is being established to monitor key risk factors that contribute to the development of cancer and other chronic diseases.
Participation in the project is aligned with other European health initiatives, such as Europe's Beating Cancer Plan and the "Healthier Together – EU NCD Initiative." This collaboration is further strengthened by additional connections to action programs (elisah, filtered, peachd, and Showup4Health), ensuring a broader and more comprehensive response.
With innovative monitoring methods, policy effectiveness evaluation, and a coordinated European approach, JA PreventNCD will significantly contribute to reducing the health burden of chronic diseases, improving quality of life, and promoting health equity across Europe. In this way, the foundations for a healthy future for generations to come are being established today.