Press Releases

American Cancer Society Invites Study Participants to Help COVID-19 Tracking
Apr 13, 2020
Volunteers sign up for CPS-3 in November of 2017
In the short term, data gathered from the app will help characterize the progression of symptoms and trajectories related to coronavirus. Over time, the data can be combined with CPS-3 data to study the longer-term health effects related to infection, including in vulnerable populations like cancer survivors.

The American Cancer Society is inviting participants in its ongoing Cancer Prevention Study 3 (CPS-3) to use a new app to help investigators track the COVID-19 epidemic and inform future research efforts.

The app, the COVID Symptom Tracker, was created by doctors and scientists at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, King's College London, and Stanford University School of Medicine, working in partnership with the health science company ZOE. It is available to anyone in the United States or United Kingdom. Participants simply download the app and each day, track whether they are feeling any symptoms.

The goal of the app is to better understand the symptoms of COVID-19; understand how fast the virus is spreading in different areas; identify high-risk areas in the country; identify who is most at risk by better understanding symptoms linked to health conditions; and identify the exposure of healthcare workers to COVID-19.

“By inviting CPS-3 participants to use this app, we hope to be able to help address the immediate and long-term needs of cancer patients and survivors,” said Alpa Patel, PhD, senior scientific director, epidemiology research and lead investigator for CPS-3. “In the short term, data gathered from the app will help characterize the progression of symptoms and trajectories related to coronavirus. Over time, the data can be combined with CPS-3 data to study the longer-term health effects related to infection, including in vulnerable populations like cancer survivors.”

Cancer Prevention Study include more than 300,000 participants from 35 states and Puerto Rico who completed a comprehensive baseline survey that included extensive medical, lifestyle, and other information. Participants are contributing to a better understanding of the roles of lifestyle, genetic, and other factors in cancer.

Covid-19 Tracker already works with other major studies, like the Nurses’ Health Study, one of the largest and longest-running scientific studies in the world with 280,000 participants, many of whom are active healthcare workers treating people with COVID.

To learn more, visit: COVID-19 symptom tracker https://bit.ly/3azr95Q