Plinio P Morita

University of Waterloo | UWaterloo · School of Public Health Sciences

In Canada, extreme heat occurrences present significant risks to public health, particularly for vulnerable groups like older individuals and those with pre-existing health conditions. Accurately predicting indoor temperatures during these events is crucial for informing public health strategies and mitigating the adverse impacts of extreme heat. W...

Sleep quality is a critical factor in human health and well-being, with implications for various physiological and psychological processes. Traditional methods of sleep data collection are often limited by the quality and reliability of the data due to issues such as recall bias and subjective interpretation. This research aims to propose a novel f...

This paper presents a multi-person gait monitoring system designed for efficient operation in cluttered environments. Thesystem demonstrates robust capabilities in tracking multiple closely spaced individuals and accurately extracting the walkingspeed, even in the presence of others. We address two significant challenges, including enhancing radar...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated public health policies to limit human mobility and curb infection spread. Human mobility, which is often underestimated, plays a pivotal role in health outcomes, impacting both infectious and chronic diseases. Collecting precise mobility data is vital for understanding human behavior and informing publi...

Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have the potential to revolutionize online health information-seeking behavior by delivering up-to-date information on a wide range of health topics. They generate personalized responses to user queries through their ability to process extensive amounts of text, analyze trends, and generate natural language res...

Extensive research on millimeter-wave (mm-wave) chipset solutions has led to a reduction in size and cost while adding sensitivity and accuracy. Recent mm-wave chipset solutions using antenna-in package approaches were developed for various applications with wide beamwidth and low gain. However, for some applications, such as gait monitoring in a l...

BACKGROUND Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) is a chronic disease that can be managed in part through healthy behaviours. However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted how people managed their condition. Using social media forums and analytics through Patient-Generated Health Data (PGHD) presents an opportunity to understand the health behaviours from the perspectiv...

Introduction Immunotherapy has revolutionized the treatment of many different types of cancer, but it is associated with a myriad of immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures have been identified as valuable tools for continuously collecting patient-centered data and are frequently used in oncology trials. Howev...

In this work, we present a cloud-based system for non-contact, real-time recognition and monitoring of physical activities and walking periods within a domestic environment. The proposed system employs standalone Internet of Things (IoT)-based millimeter wave radar devices and deep learning models to enable autonomous, free-living activity recognit...

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic impacted how people accessed health services and likely how they managed chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes. Social media forums present a source of qualitative data to understand how adaptation might have occurred from the perspective of the patient. OBJECTIVE Our objective is to understand how the care-se...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic impacted how people accessed health services and likely how they managed chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes (T2D). Social media forums present a source of qualitative data to understand how adaptation might have occurred from the perspective of the patient. Objective Our objective is to understand how the c...

BACKGROUND The political will of politicians to act in the best interests of the populace's health, or lack thereof, has a significant impact on disease outcomes. The partisan divide that exists in the United States of America influenced the implementation and adherence to public health policies enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE The...

Background: The Internet of Things (IoT) has become integrated into everyday life, with devices becoming permanent fixtures in many homes. As countries face increasing pressure on their health care systems, smart home technologies have the potential to support population health through continuous behavioral monitoring. Objective: This scoping re...

Big data originating from user interactions on social media play an essential role in infodemiology and infoveillance outcomes, supporting the planning and implementation of public health actions. Notably, the extrapolation of these data requires an awareness of different ethical elements. Previous studies have investigated and discussed the adopti...

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated public health policies to limit human mobility and curb infection spread. Human mobility, which is often underestimated, plays a pivotal role in health outcomes, impacting both infectious and chronic diseases. Collecting precise mobility data is vital for understanding human behavior and informing publi...

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating the world since late 2019. In response, governments across the world implemented mobility restrictions to halt the spread; however, these limitations only slowed transmission. To understand the disease and guide public health interventions, there have been many attempts to develop predictive mod...

Stress is an increasingly prevalent mental health condition across the world. In Europe, for example, stress is considered one of the most common health problems, and over USD 300 billion are spent on stress treatments annually. Therefore, monitoring, identification and prevention of stress are of the utmost importance. While most stress monitoring...

Construction workers are typically exposed to physically-demanding tasks for long periods, which considerably affects their well-being and productivity. To avoid productivity loss, work-rest interventions are critical to reduce strenuous physical exertion, interrupt the monotonous workloads, and reduce the risk of injuries and muscular disorders. A...

Smart home devices have great potential for supporting older adults’ health, safety, and independent living. Past reviews have identified only a few studies on the use of smart home devices for older adults and reported low technology readiness levels for the devices. This article presents a systematic literature review to identify the devices that...

This paper presents a novel hallway gait extraction system that enables an individual’s spatiotemporal gait parameter extraction at each gait cycle using a single FMCW (Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave) radar. The purpose of the proposed system is to detect changes in gait that may be the signs of changes in mobility, cognition, and frailty, par...

Wearable sensors utilize small, low-cost, noninvasive, and wireless components. These sensors capture vital signs, allowing the monitoring of patients remotely. In this manner, they are efficient tools to enhance patient care and can be used to monitor vulnerable populations and keep track of the development of chronic diseases and the transmission...

Stress is an increasingly prevalent mental health condition that can have serious effects on human health. The development of stress prediction tools would greatly benefit public health by allowing policy initiatives and early stress-reducing interventions. The advent of mobile health technologies including smartphones and smartwatches has made it...

Background Understanding what factors lead to youth polysubstance use (PSU) patterns and how the transitions between use patterns can inform the design and implementation of PSU prevention programs. We explore the dynamics of PSU patterns from a large cohort of Canadian secondary school students using machine learning techniques. Methods We employ...

BACKGROUND Falls are a leading cause of injury and death among aging adults. They represent a tremendous financial burden on a nation’s healthcare system. There is a need to develop and implement fall prevention and detection systems (FPDSs) to mitigate falls in residential and hospital settings. Despite advances in FPDS development, less is known...

BACKGROUND Online misinformation concerning the side effects of fluoridated oral care products and tap water contributes to the onset and propagation of untrue beliefs that culminate in anti-fluoridation movements. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to analyze the fluoride-related misinformation on Twitter automatically. METHODS 21,169 tweets published i...

Background: Although social media has the potential to spread misinformation, it can also be a valuable tool for elucidating the social factors that contribute to the onset of negative beliefs. As a result, data mining has become a widely used technique in infodemiology and infoveillance research to combat misinformation effects. On the other hand...

BACKGROUND Digital misinformation, primarily on social media, has led to harmful and costly beliefs in the general population. Notably, these beliefs have resulted in public health crises to the detriment of governments around the world and their citizens. However, public health officials currently lack access to a comprehensive system capable of m...

Contact tracing apps (CTAs) were deployed worldwide in 2020 to combat COVID-19. Due to their low uptake, a growing amount of empirical research is being conducted to understand the factors that drive their adoption. For CTAs to be adopted, users must, first and foremost, find them persuasive. However, there is little research to understand the role...

The COVID-19 pandemic culminated in the global roll-out of contact tracing apps, also known as exposure notification apps (ENAs), to contain the spread of the virus. ENAs notify users about a possible infection and advises them to take certain health measures such as self-isolation and COVID-19 test. While some work has been done on the factors tha...

The use of smart wearables provides an opportunity to improve construction safety and productivity. Because the healthcare industry has been at the forefront of applying such technologies, this paper investigates available ubiquitous wearables, their metrics, and types of measurements; how existing healthcare systems detect hazards and unhealthy be...

BACKGROUND Health monitoring smarthomes are becoming popular, with some experts arguing that nine-to-five healthcare service delivery might soon become a thing of the past. However, no scoping review has explored the landscape on using smarthomes to promote physical activities required by the aging population to live and function independently. OB...

In this paper, leveraging AI, cloud computing and radar technology, we create intelligent sensing that enables smarter applications to improve people's daily lives.

We propose a novel corridor or hallway gait monitoring system based on radar signal processing, unsupervised learning, and a subject detection, association and tracking method. This paper proposes an algorithm that could be paired with any type of MIMO FMCW radar to capture human gait in a highly cluttered environment without needing radar antenna...

The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the world and highlighted the inadequacies of public healthcare systems despite the availability of effective public health surveillance systems. The constraints caused by the pandemic had a great impact on behavioural markers such as physical, sedentary and sleep activity. In 2020, the United States (US) impl...

BACKGROUND Active Assisted Living (AAL) refers to systems designed to improve quality of life, aid in independence, and create healthier lifestyles for those who need assistance at any stage of their lives. As the population of older adults in Canada grows, there is a pressing need for non-intrusive, continuous, adaptable, and reliable health monit...

While there have been rapid advancements in individual technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) and Active Assisted Living (AAL) to address challenges related to an aging population, there remain large gaps in how these technologies can be integrated into the broader ecosystem to support older adults in aging in place. This research provides a...

Background: Active assisted living (AAL) refers to systems designed to improve the quality of life, aid in independence, and create healthier lifestyles for those who need assistance at any stage of their lives. As the population of older adults in Canada grows, there is a pressing need for nonintrusive, continuous, adaptable, and reliable health m...

Background Climate change, driven by human activity, is rapidly changing our environment and posing an increased risk to human health. Local governments must adapt their cities and prepare for increased periods of extreme heat and ensure that marginalized populations do not suffer detrimental health outcomes. Heat warnings traditionally rely on out...

Background The emergence of new variants of COVID-19 causing breakthrough infections and the endemic potential of the coronavirus are an indication that digital contact tracing apps (CTAs) may continue to be useful for the long haul. However, the uptake of these apps in many countries around the world has been low due to several factors militating...

Background Sleep behavior and time spent at home are important determinants of human health. Research on sleep patterns has traditionally relied on self-reported data. Not only does this methodology suffer from bias but the population-level data collection is also time-consuming. Advances in smart home technology and the Internet of Things have the...

Understanding what factors lead to youth polysubstance use (PSU) patterns and how the transitions between use patterns can inform the design and implementation of PSU prevention programs. We explore the dynamics of PSU patterns from a large cohort of Canadian secondary school students using machine learning techniques.

Background: The Internet of Things (IoT) has become more integrated into everyday life, with devices becoming permanent fixtures in many homes. As countries face increasingly older populations, the use of IoT devices to support independent living for elderly individuals and others who need support is now possible. These groups may require assistanc...

The Justice Institute of British Columbia convened its first annual Paramedics Connecting Through Applied Research (Paramedics CARe) between May 27 2021 and June 11 2021 over four morning sessions held online. The conference was co-sponsored by the CSA Group, the Justice Institute of British Columbia, and the University of Waterloo through a Connec...

The continued emergence of new variants of COVID-19 such as the Delta and Omicron variants, which can cause breakthrough infections, indicates that contact tracing and exposure notification apps (ENAs) will continue to be useful for the long haul. However, there is limited work to uncover the strongest factors that influence their adoption. Using C...

Background Privacy agreements can foster trust between users and data collecting entities by reducing the fear of data sharing. Users typically identify concerns with their data privacy settings, but due to the complexity and length of privacy agreements, users opt to quickly consent and agree to the terms without fully understanding them. Objecti...

BACKGROUND Privacy agreements can foster trust between users and data collecting entities by reducing the fear of data sharing. Users typically identify concerns with their data privacy settings, but due to the complexity and length of privacy agreements, users opt to quickly consent and agree to the terms without fully understanding them. OBJECTI...

BACKGROUND Digital oral health misleading information has been propagated on social media to deceive people about fluoride's economic and health benefits to prevent dental caries. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to characterize the misleading fluoride-related information on Instagram. METHODS 3,863 posts ranked by users' total interaction and publishe...

Background Online false or misleading oral health–related content has been propagated on social media to deceive people against fluoride’s economic and health benefits to prevent dental caries. Objective The aim of this study was to characterize the false or misleading fluoride-related content on Instagram. MethodsA total of 3863 posts ranked by us...

The Internet of Things (IoT) has enabled novel solutions for monitoring patients’ health through wearable sensors in conditions of both non-communicable and infectious diseases. In this paper, we report work in progress involving the development of an IoT-based COVID-19 health monitoring system that can effectively monitor the essential physiologic...

Recent advances in technology have led to the rise of new-age data sources (e.g., Internet of Things (IoT), wearables, social media, and mobile health). IoT is becoming ubiquitous, and data generation is accelerating globally. Other health research domains have used IoT as a data source, but its potential has not been thoroughly explored and utiliz...

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in the first quarter of 2020, necessitated the imposition of public health restrictions and the shutting down of the global economy. To slow down the spread of the coronavirus, governments worldwide rolled out nationwide contact tracing apps (CTAs) to notify people that may have been exposed to COVID-19...

Background The adoption of contact tracing apps worldwide has been low. Although considerable research has been conducted on technology acceptance, little has been done to show the benefit of incorporating persuasive principles. Objective This research aimed to investigate the effect of persuasive features in the COVID Alert app, created by Health...

Background: The climate crisis is one of the biggest challenges of our time. Technological innovations particularly, persuasive technology have been identified as a veritable tool for effecting behaviour change in the climate-change domain. However, there is limited work on the synthesis of the findings of the existing literature on persuasive tech...

BACKGROUND Climate change, driven by human activity, is rapidly changing our environment and posing an increased risk to human health. Local governments must adapt their cities and prepare for increased periods of extreme heat and ensure that marginalized populations do not suffer detrimental health outcomes. Heat warnings traditionally rely on out...

BACKGROUND The spread of COVID-19 at the local level is significantly impacted by population mobility. The U.S. has had extremely high per capita COVID-19 case and death rates. Efficient non-pharmaceutical interventions to control the spread of COVID-19 depend on our understanding of the determinants of public mobility. OBJECTIVE This study used s...