How might we enable consumers to easily measure, detect or monitor health conditions, to aid in timely and appropriate preventative or treatment intervention?

J&J's portfolio of Consumer Health brands provide solutions that help consumers (and doctors) in the prevention, early interception, and treatment of common health issues. These solutions are clinically proven to provide improved health outcomes. However, consumer adoption remains a challenge due in part to their lack of awareness of these common health issues. Simple and easy-to-use consumer diagnostics solutions can help empower them to detect and even visualize the early signs or presence of these health issues and help them move towards an effective prevention and/or treatment strategy.

The following consumer health areas are of particular interest in Asia:

1. Better Sleep Quality for Babies. Sleep has a major impact on health, well-being, and normal neurological functioning and maturation across age groups. Poor sleep quality is also implicated as a factor in variety of systemic heath issues, and poor development among babies and children. In babies in particular, 50% of infants in Asia have problems with sleep quality. Mom's compliance to expert-recommended sleep routines is a challenge given lack of consistent guidance and reminder to aid in habit formation, and baby sleep quality feedback to assist in required ritual changes or further interventions.
    
2. Photodamage prevention. Nearly 80% of skin ageing is attributable to photodamage due to excessive sun exposure. If unaddressed, cumulative photodamage can lead to more serious skin conditions, including skin cancer. Doctors recommend daily use of sun protection, including topical sunscreens, to significantly reduce sun exposure. However, usage incidence is still low in most Asian markets with only 16% of Chinese consumers using sunscreens regularly, for example. Compliance to daily usage and prescribed dosages could be even lower than that, given the lack of real-time feedback to consistently remind consumers to use sun protection and build a sustainable habit change.
    
3. Better Oral Health. It is clinically well-established that rinsing with an anti-microbial mouthwash as part of a daily oral hygiene can significantly improve oral health. But consumers are unaware of the benefits of using a mouthwash because they cannot visualize the problems (e.g. bacteria build-up, gum inflammation, loss of tooth minerals) before it's too late (e.g. cavity, gingivitis, and serious oral health conditions.
    

Please view the video for more information.

The objective of this innovation call is to develop non-invasive, easy to use, and economical consumer diagnostic solutions that can detect, visualize and/or monitor health conditions for part or all of the following use cases:

• Sleep quality monitoring for babies and potentially adults. The solution should minimally measure length of time to fall asleep and number of times awake at night.
• Photodamage prevention. The solution should provide detailed information on predicted sun exposures (UV index, weather conditions, exposure to blue light etc) and appropriate measures to prevent or reduce photodamage. It should also provide real-time feedback by visualizing photodamage if preventative measures are not taken, and the benefit of using sunscreen products.
• Reliable determination of oral health problems, for example measuring bacterial build-up in the mouth without the use of laboratory or dental office equipment, bad breath pre- and post-rinsing with mouthwash.

Key Elements Required In The Solution

Solutions should meet the following design criteria:

• Robust for intended consumer use (e.g. at home, school and outdoors, rugged and baby-friendly for sleep monitor, etc ) and considers human factors key to ease of use and compliance.
• Intuitive software or hardware or a combination of both, easy to use with or without existing consumer devices. Can be non-digital or mechanical. If digital, an Intuitive user interface with the ability to show trends as part of continuous observations or treatment, without extensive consumer input or oversight.
• Accurate and reliable, and supported by sound clinical and medical science.
• Engaging and motivating.
• Affordable for key Asian market consumers (China, India, Philippines) to purchase, OR cost-feasible to be integrated into J&J’s commercial programs.
• The solutions should ideally link problem discovery to clinically/medically-sound recommendations for managing the detected conditions, that consumers can follow through on their own, or in partnership with their HCPs. For example, sleep quality detection could be coupled with a guide on appropriate sleep therapy.
• Non-invasive.
• Fast measurement.
• Replaceable battery (if any).
• Meets all regulatory mandated safety requirements.
• Complies with all applicable regulations and J&J privacy and quality and compliance policies

12 months (Proof-of-Concept