The prevention4all application, an initiative by the coordination of the Action Plan for Active and Healthy Ageing, in coordination with the Directorate-General for Health, will allow each citizen, in their personal area, to enter the necessary data so that, through artificial intelligence, they can receive, for example, suggestions on the best exercise plan for their particular case.

Speaking to Lusa, the plan's coordinator, Nuno Marques, explained that the application will aggregate reliable information on subjects such as the promotion of physical exercise, prevention of addictive habits – such as tobacco and alcohol – and nutrition, as well as the areas of cardiovascular diseases, oncology, mental health, dementia, musculoskeletal diseases, and vaccination.

“If we want people to actively participate, we have to take other steps. In addition to the information itself, we need to have this information structured so that people can immediately clear up their doubts”, he stated, stressing that everything that will be made available is reliable as it will be published by the plan's coordinators, in conjunction with the DGS itself, also counting on scientific societies in each of the areas.

Using artificial intelligence, in addition to individualized exercise plans, depending on the area where the person is, the application will provide information on the places where they can do it.

“This will increase people’s participation and active participation in a process that they themselves should be involved in, within the freedom that each person has, but in a duly informed and empowered way”, said the person in charge, rejecting the idea that this is to remove responsibility from the system.

As he explained, the application, which will start to work gradually next year (it will not have all the possibilities right away), will also allow alerts, depending on the age group, about the vaccines to be taken, providing a ‘link’ so that the person can schedule them at the health centre.

Another possibility is the sending of alerts for the population-based oncology screenings that have been defined, allowing requests to be issued and indicating the closest places available to carry out the exams.

“In addition to certainly helping to increase participation, it will also improve people’s lives in terms of access to prevention”, stated Nuno Marques, explaining that the information will then be transmitted to the Ministry of Health’s information systems, “so that everything is recorded”, even if the person does not have a family doctor assigned.

When asked about data protection issues, he said that they do not arise because it is the user himself who, if he so wishes, will provide his personal data.

“It is a platform developed for people, not for the system, which is a slightly different paradigm. The person will be the one who will keep all the data”, he stated, adding that the application will have communication with health professionals.

The official also stressed that measures such as this application - which can be used by people over 18 years of age - “can have a great impact on promoting health and, therefore, on prevention, avoiding situations that lead to dependency later on, identifying disease situations early while they are treatable”.