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Updated: May 16, 2026

Methodology for Establishing a Community-Wide Life Laboratory for Capturing Unobtrusive and Continuous Remote Activity and Health Data
Published on: July 27, 2018
New approaches to human mobility: using mobile phones for demographic research
John R B Palmer1, Thomas J Espenshade, Frederic Bartumeus
1Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and Office of Population Research, Princeton University, 284 Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA. jrpalmer@princeton.edu
Abstract:
This article explores new methods for gathering and analyzing spatially rich demographic data using mobile phones. It describes a pilot study (the Human Mobility Project) in which volunteers around the world were successfully recruited to share GPS and cellular tower information on their trajectories and respond to dynamic, location-based surveys using an open-source Android application. The pilot study illustrates the great potential of mobile phone methodology for moving spatial measures beyond residential census units and investigating a range of important social phenomena, including the heterogeneity of activity spaces, the dynamic nature of spatial segregation, and the contextual dependence of subjective well-being.
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