
Image courtesy of Washington University School of Medicine
Looking for new, personalized ways to improve your health on the go? There's an app for that. Dr. Graham Colditz, disease prevention expert at the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has developed a free iPad app that estimates your disease risk and offers a customized plan for living a healthier life.
The Zuum app estimates a person's risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and different cancers based on a health questionnaire and then provides personalized tips to prevent those illnesses and boost overall health.
“We wanted to get the word out about easy changes in behavior that might help people prevent certain diseases,” Colditz said in a press release.
Colditz collaborated with the developers of the award-winning Your Disease Risk website; Hank Dart, a public health communications consultant for Siteman; and Heather Corcoran, associate professor of communication design at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University.
The app builds on Colditz's work in the Nurses Health Study and Growing Up Today Study, which examine the links among cancer, alcohol use, diet, exercise and other factors.
“We want to make it easy for people to be health-conscious,” Colditz said. “With Zuum, anyone can make healthier choices.”
For more information, visit zuum.wustl.edu or follow Zuum on Twitter.