Social inequalities in health are a key challenge and can be largely traced back to social differences in health behaviours, such as food decisions. Food decisions are one of the key behaviours to preserve health and prevent chronic degenerative diseases, which are the major cause of death in Western countries. Yet surprisingly little is known about how, when, where, and by whom these food decisions are made. The goal of the proposed research project is to further develop and apply a multi-method approach that combines methods from informatics, sociology, and psychology to better understand everyday social decisions, using the example of family food decisions. Developing such externally valid methods that take the social context into account is central to better understand the inequalities in nutrition and health.
We are currently conducting first pilot studies to measure social decisions with new methods. We collect sensing data to detect speech, identify speakers, and measure speaking times in eating situations. Upcoming studies will test audio cues to determine meal start and end times and evaluate the emotional valence of a meal conversation. We are also assessing user acceptance of these technologies for daily measurements of meals. Next steps involve validating these measures, refining algorithms as needed, and developing study protocols for both lab settings and real-world applications.
