Consent · Health Habit Hub

The Health Habit Hub app is the study app for the HabConnect – from Habit to Health study conducted by Technische Universität Dresden.

This is a convenience translation. The German version of this document is authoritative.

Key Points at a Glance

Before reading the full details, here is a quick summary:

What is this about? You share everyday habits and receive personalised recommendations for a healthier lifestyle.
Who runs the study? The Digital Health Research Group at TU Dresden — reviewed and approved by an independent ethics committee.
Is my data safe? All data is stored in fully anonymised form. No name, no email, no address.
Is participation voluntary? Yes — you can stop at any time, for any reason, with no consequences.
Can I delete my data? You can delete your account at any time in the app settings while you are still participating. This deletes only your account; your already anonymously collected study data remains in the research database. If, in an urgent case, you would still like this anonymous data removed, please contact the study team directly.

Information

Dear prospective participant,

Thank you for your interest in our research. The Health Habit Hub app is part of the HabConnect – from Habit to Health study, planned and conducted by the Digital Health Research Group, Faculty of Business and Economics, Technische Universität Dresden. The study is self-funded by our institution and has been reviewed by an independent ethics committee, which raised no objections.

Your participation is voluntary. You can stop at any time without giving a reason and without any disadvantage to you. If you learned of the study through a cooperating clinical institution, your decision to participate or not has no influence whatsoever on your medical treatment or aftercare.

Why is this study being conducted?

The research project has two parts:

Part 1 – Collecting habits: We gather data on everyday habits — which habits people perform, in which contexts, and how they differ between groups.

Part 2 – Testing recommendations: Based on the collected data, we develop and test how personalised recommendations must be formulated and delivered for people to actually adopt them.

Example research questions:

In which contexts (e.g. time of day, environment) are health-promoting habits most frequently performed?
Which factors influence whether people integrate new habits into their daily lives?
How do digital interventions affect the long-term maintenance of healthy habits?

The goal is to develop scientifically sound, practical recommendations that help people lead healthier lives in the long term. In addition, we will examine how the existing digital intervention can support adult patients who have been discharged from hospital after completing intensive-care treatment in establishing health-promoting habits. The scientific research question and the digital applications used remain unchanged.

How does the study work?

There is no fixed participation period — you decide how long and how intensively you take part. You may learn of the study either through the public availability of the Health Habit Hub app or through a cooperating clinical institution. Regardless of the recruitment channel, participation takes place exclusively through the digital applications described in this document.

In the Health Habit Hub app you can:

Describe and share your everyday habits (e.g. “Every morning after waking up, I brush my teeth and do 10 squats.”)
Receive personalised recommendations for healthy habits and log whether you have followed them
Complete short weekly questionnaires (approx. 10 minutes)

Depending on how actively you participate, the daily time commitment is approximately 5–15 minutes.

What do you get out of it?

You reflect more consciously on your own habits.
You receive ideas and personalised recommendations for a healthier everyday life.
You make a valuable contribution to research that can benefit many people in the long term.

What are the risks?

Apart from the data protection aspects explained below, there are no risks associated with participation.

What is expected of you?

Please answer all questions honestly and to the best of your knowledge. Only then can reliable results be obtained and meaningful recommendations be derived.

Data Protection

The Digital Health Research Group of TU Dresden is responsible for your data.

Legal basis: Your personal consent (Art. 6(1)(a), Art. 9(2)(a) GDPR).

What data is collected?

All data is collected in fully anonymised form. This means: no information is stored that could be used to identify you — no name, no date of birth, no email address.

We collect:

Descriptions of everyday habits
Demographic characteristics (e.g. age group, gender, occupation) — in anonymised form only
App usage behaviour (e.g. whether a recommended habit was followed)
Weekly questionnaire responses on habit strength and well-being

If you learned of the study through a cooperating clinical institution, no data from your patient records or other clinical information systems is transferred into the study. All information collected as part of the study is entered exclusively by you within the Health Habit Hub app. The clinical institution has no access to your study data.

How is the data used?

Your anonymised data will be used for:

This study — to answer the research questions
An open habits database — anonymised data will be made permanently available to the scientific community to develop better recommendation systems
Scientific publications — in a form that does not allow any conclusions about individual participants

International data transfers

Your data may be shared with international research partners. Regardless of the recipient, only anonymised and aggregated data is ever transferred — never individual, identifiable records.

Certain anonymised and aggregated datasets (e.g. on the formulation of habits) are shared with the following partners:

Tohoku University, Japan (Center for Smart Aging Research)
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada (Faculty of Business Administration)
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium
Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel (UZ Brussel), Belgium (Department of Clinical Nutrition)

Japan and Canada have both received an EU adequacy decision. Belgium is an EU member state, so transfers there are not considered an international data transfer under the GDPR. In every case, only anonymised data is transferred — for example: “Group A logged more habits on average than Group B.”

How long is the data stored?

Anonymous data is stored on TU Dresden servers and may be kept permanently to support long-term scientific research. Once data has been fully anonymised, individual records can no longer be identified or selectively deleted.

Your rights

Because all data is anonymous, we cannot attribute specific records to any individual after anonymisation. You can delete your account at any time in the app settings while you are still participating; this deletes only your account, while your already anonymously collected study data remains in the research database. If, in an urgent case, you would still like this anonymous data removed, please contact the study team directly. For questions or concerns, please contact:

Felix Reinsch felix.reinsch@tu-dresden.de Digital Health Research Group, Technische Universität Dresden

TU Dresden Data Protection Officer: Helmholtzstr. 6, 01062 Dresden Tel.: +49 351 463-0 Email: Informationssicherheit@tu-dresden.de

You have the right to lodge a complaint with any data protection supervisory authority:

Saxon Commissioner for Data Protection and Transparency Postfach 11 01 32, 01330 Dresden Tel.: +49 351 85471-101 Email: post@sdtb.sachsen.de

A list of all German supervisory authorities is available at: https://www.bfdi.bund.de/DE/Infothek/Anschriften_Links/anschriften_links-node.html

This consent form is reviewed regularly. Any significant changes will be communicated to you via the app and you will be asked to consent again. The current version is always accessible within the app.

I have read and understood the information about this study. I have been informed that:

my participation is voluntary,
I can stop at any time without giving a reason,
all my data will be fully anonymised,
deleting my account deletes only my account, while my already anonymously collected study data remains, unless I additionally request its removal directly from the study team in an urgent case,
the data will be used for scientific purposes and in an open research database.

By continuing, I consent to the anonymous use of my data within the HabConnect research.

Your information will be used exclusively for scientific purposes and stored on the secure servers of TU Dresden.

Consent to Participate in the HabConnect Study