Who built How We Feel? The app was built by an independent, nonprofit organization called The How We Feel Project. Our organization was founded by a volunteer team of scientists, doctors and technologists. Our mission is to make the world healthier by connecting citizens with the global health community. The organization was created in March 2020 to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. We're proud to be working with scientists, doctors and public health professionals from leading institutions including The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, University of Maryland School of Medicine, and the Weizmann Institute of Science. We're collaborating with Dr. Gary King from Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science’s Privacy Insights Project. Dr. King specializes in developing technologies to make data available to researchers while protecting participants’ individual identities. Our technology team includes Ben Silbermann, CEO of Pinterest, and a volunteer group of current and former Pinterest employees.

How will scientists and doctors use the data? Scientists and doctors will use the data to identify new outbreaks, understand how the virus is spreading, discover new populations that may be at risk, and evaluate how interventions are working to slow the spread of the disease. This data is crucial right now because there’s a widespread shortage of COVID-19 testing. Self-reported data can be a powerful new tool in our fight against the pandemic.

Why should I use the app? We’re all looking for something we can do to stop the spread of the virus. Health professionals need insight into areas that aren’t yet showing significant spikes in positive COVID-19 tests, but could be on the edge of an outbreak. This data is especially important because there's a worldwide shortage of testing. Sharing how you feel will help scientists and researchers find new hotspots and identify populations that could be at risk. The data can also reveal which health measures are having the fastest impact so we can apply those learnings in other areas.

What if I’m healthy and I don’t have any symptoms? Data on healthy people is important, too. When you open the app, you can click “I feel good.” Remember, the goal of this app is to get an aggregate sense of how people are feeling across America. Get into the habit of reporting your symptoms (or lack of them). Take 30 seconds to donate your data by checking in while you brush your teeth in the morning or before you go to bed at night. Reporting your health data now has the potential to save lives later on.

Who can use the app? The How We Feel app is available to everyone in the U.S. who is 18 or older.

How often should I do a health check-in on the app? Daily. The more people report their symptoms, the better, so the app encourages daily check-ins where people can select symptoms from a list. Each report only takes 30 seconds.

What happens to my data? The data you submit is aggregated and shared with doctors, scientists, researchers and public health professionals who are working to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. We screen every individual or organization who applies to access the aggregated data. We don’t need to know who you are. We won’t ask you for your name, phone number, or email address. You won’t be asked to create an account or log in through other accounts. All data is securely shared only with organizations actively working to fight the spread of COVID-19. Current collaborators include: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Broad Institute of MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. Our team includes collaborators like Gary King, from the Institute for Quantitative Social Science’s Privacy Insights Project. Gary’s research team specializes in developing “differential privacy” and other techniques to make data available to researchers while protecting participants’ individual identities. If you're actively working to fight the pandemic and you’d like to apply to become a collaborator, please email us at collaboration@howwefeel.org