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Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Exercise & Health Lab

SPRING App Data Usage

SPRING is a research platform that supports behavioral health intervention studies. It consists of a participant-facing mobile app, wearable device integration, and an administrative dashboard that lets study teams manage participants and monitor study data.

How SPRING uses Google User Data

SPRING requests access to Google Health only after a participant enrolls in a study and gives informed consent.

Depending on the study, we may request the following data:

  • Read-only Google Health Settings: Required to read the participant's paired devices, specifically each device's type and last sync time. Our studies monitor wear adherence: study staff and automated daily checks confirm each participant's device has synced within a set number of hours and prompt participants whose device has stopped syncing, so data gaps are caught while they can still be fixed. The last-sync time is only available through the paired-devices resource, which requires this scope. We do not use any other account settings.
  • Read-only Google Health Activity and Fitness: Required to read each participant's daily steps, distance, calories, activity level, active zone minutes, heart-rate zones, calories in each heart-rate zone, and resting heart rate. These daily summaries are the primary physical-activity outcome measures in our studies and drive participant-facing progress feedback and staff adherence monitoring.
  • Read-only Google Health Metrics and Measurements: Required to read weight and body-fat measurements participants log. Several studies use these measurements as study outcomes. No other health metric in this category is used.
  • Read-only Google Health Sleep: Required to read sleep sessions (duration, timing, and stages). Sleep is a study outcome in several protocols; one study (CPAP adherence) combines Fitbit sleep data with CPAP device data to assess therapy adherence.

This data is used only to deliver a study intervention and to conduct the research the participant consented to. We do not use it for advertising, sell it, or share it with data brokers. Access by study staff is limited to authorized investigators and is governed by each study's consent terms.

Data Security

Participant data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. Research datasets are de-identified before analysis.

Participant Control

Participants can disconnect Google access at any time from within the mobile app. To request deletion of their data, they may contact study staff. SPRING's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.