Linking digital footprint data into longitudinal population studies.

Background: Linking digital footprint data into longitudinal population studies (LPS) presents an opportunity to enrich our understanding of how digitally captured behaviours relate to health traits and disease. However, this linkage introduces significant methodological challenges that require systematic exploration.

Objectives: To develop a robust framework for successful digital footprint linkage into LPS, informed by discussions from a workshop from the Digital Footprints Conference 2024.

Methods: We propose a structured, four-stage framework to facilitate successful linkage of digital footprint data into LPS: (1) understand participant expectations and acceptability; (2) collect and link the data; (3) evaluate properties of the data; and (4) ensure secure and ethical access for research. This framework addresses the key methodological challenges identified at each stage, discussed through the lens of two LPS case studies: the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and Generation Scotland.

Results: Key methodological challenges identified include privacy and confidentiality concerns, reliance on third-party platforms, data quality issues like missing data and measurement error. We also emphasize the role of trusted research environments and synthetic datasets in enabling secure, privacy-sensitive data sharing for research.

Conclusions: While the linkage digital footprint data to LPS remains in early stages, our framework provides a methodological foundation for overcoming current challenges. Through iterative refinement of these methods there is significant potential to advance population-level insights into health and wellbeing.