EMOTICon-Net

Due in part to the Covid-19 pandemic, many people have stopped practising sport, becoming increasingly sedentary. The project aims to counter this phenomenon by promoting technology-mediated physical activity, encouraging citizens to use every open space at their disposal for exercise because, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) explains, being physically active is essential for the heart, mind and body, at any age and with any ability. So 'Every move counts'.  

EMOTICon-Net will also serve to collect data and information useful for developing prevention models and measuring more accurately the effectiveness and safety of therapies, diagnostic strategies, rehabilitation and prevention programmes implemented to promote and improve people's health.  

The project will run for two years and will end in January 2025.

The project will be developed in six phases: 

• During the first phase, evidence-supported activity sheets will be constructed, customised according to the profiles identified by the Operational Units (OUs). In parallel, stakeholders from the local and scientific community will be identified with whom to co-design the intervention, through a dialogue between community and experts that contributes both to the empowerment and engagement of citizens and to the further local characterisation of the active lifestyle promotion programme;
• Thanks to the synergies created and the operational units in the field, in the second phase a survey of community services or resources related to physical activity in the area will be undertaken;  
• A third phase envisages the development of a technological interface/app able to offer the user personalised access to appropriately mapped and digitised services, guaranteeing the possibility of feedback and data collection according to a set of indicators defined on the basis of scientific evidence; 
• The fourth phase envisages data collection on the lifestyle of the users accessing the Operational Units (OUs) involved in the project, in order to make an initial comparison with the data from the national 'PASSI' and 'PASSI d'argento' surveys;  
• The intervention will be carried out during the fifth phase: each Operational Unit will enrol the specific patient population of competence (overweight/obese people or people with metabolic syndrome -, adults over-65 -, people adhering to oncological screening -); the technological platform will allow the measurement of reported parameters (e.g. weight, response to ad hoc questionnaires) or measured parameters (e.g. extent of the pathways carried out) for the calculation of the indicators predefined in phase three; the health outcomes and the functionality/performance of the users will be evaluated;  
• Phase six involves the analysis and discussion with the stakeholders of the data collected, firstly to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the project and to use the data collection system for the development of evidence-based public health programmes; secondly, to promote the use of policies that maintain an intersectoral dialogue in order to achieve the goal of health in all policies. 

Lombardy Region, Lazio Region, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Rome.

Evaluation and research

Scientific coordinator of the project is Elisabetta Anna Graps.