WARIFA - Watching the risk factors: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the prevention of chronic conditions – is a research project funded by the EU’s research and innovation program Horizon 2020 (GA 101017385). The primary goal is to define a general personalized early risk assessment tool that will be used to support individual preventive measures for noncommunicable diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes, the leading causes of death in the world. This system will be accessible for individual citizens and patients on their smartphones via the WARIFA app.

Thanks to this risk assessment tool based on automatic processing of both user-generated and big data stored in a central system, citizens will be informed about the risk of developing a certain disease which they previously may not have been aware of, or about a known disease getting worse.

The WARIFA app will be conceived with a user-friendly graphic interface helping to assess the need for preventive measures on an individual and person-centered basis. Furthermore, the app will provide a personalized set of recommendations on lifestyle according to the individual risk profile developed by AI technology. Citizens are motivated to improve unhealthy habits while good lifestyle choices are supported. Those individuals at a very increased risk are advised to get in touch with the health care system.

The main focus areas of the project are the prevention of melanoma skin cancer by reducing excessive sun exposure, and the prevention of the complications of diabetes by improving lifestyle risk factors such as unhealthy diet and physical inactivity. Whatever, the AI-based technology developed in the project could also be embedded in other third-party apps in the near future for other pathologies. As a consequence, WARIFA could also play an important role to limit the pressure on the health care system and decreasing the related economic costs.