UK health officials are turning to an unexpected source in the fight against respiratory diseases: sleep data. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has announced a new 12-week research collaboration with sleep-tracking app Sleep Cycle to explore whether anonymised data collected during sleep could help detect outbreaks of illnesses such as flu, RSV and Covid-19 earlier than existing systems.
The study will examine trends drawn from privacy-protected data collected through the Sleep Cycle app between January 2023 and January 2026. A key focus will be Sleep Cycle’s Cough Radar, a public tool that visualises patterns of nighttime coughing across different regions in England. Researchers want to understand whether changes in coughing intensity during sleep could act as an early signal of rising respiratory infections in communities.
For diaspora communities living in the UK, where access to healthcare, language barriers, and delayed treatment can sometimes worsen health outcomes, early warning systems like this could be particularly important. Earlier detection of respiratory illness trends could help public health authorities respond faster and ensure clearer guidance reaches families who may already be vulnerable.
The research will compare sleep-based signals, such as coughing during the night, with existing data from hospitals and other disease surveillance systems. By looking at how closely these trends align, scientists hope to determine whether sleep data can offer earlier visibility into infection waves before hospital admissions begin to rise.
This is the first time UKHSA has formally assessed sleep app data as part of national disease surveillance. It also represents a shift in how consumer technology could support public health, with Sleep Cycle moving beyond personal sleep insights to contribute to population-level research.
Professor Steven Riley, Chief Data Officer at UKHSA, said the agency is continually exploring new technologies, including artificial intelligence, to strengthen its monitoring systems. He described the collaboration as a potentially important step towards integrating new data sources into national health intelligence, adding that earlier insights could improve the UK’s ability to respond to respiratory infections.
Sleep Cycle’s CEO, Erik Jivmark, said sleep provides one of the most consistent and passive windows into human health. With data spanning more than three billion nights across 180 countries, he said the company is eager to see whether sleep patterns can reveal meaningful signals about population health trends. He added that the partnership reflects Sleep Cycle’s commitment to supporting proactive public health responses while protecting user privacy.
Traditional disease surveillance relies heavily on laboratory testing, hospital admissions, and community reporting. While these methods remain essential, they can lag behind real-world transmission, especially in fast-moving outbreaks. Sleep data, by contrast, has rarely been explored at scale, despite growing evidence that nighttime coughing patterns can reflect underlying viral activity.
UKHSA has been clear that privacy remains central to the project. No UKHSA data will be shared with Sleep Cycle. All analysis will take place within UKHSA’s secure systems, led by its own research team and supported by epidemiologists and data scientists from both organisations. Sleep Cycle will only provide anonymised, aggregated insights drawn from user-consented data.
Previous research by Sleep Cycle suggests that audio-based cough detection during sleep can correlate with real-world infection trends. This collaboration gives UK public health officials the opportunity to test those findings within a national surveillance framework for the first time.
For migrants and diaspora families who often rely on public health messaging to make decisions about work, travel, school, and caring for order relatives, innovations like this could improve how quickly warnings and advice are issued. Faster detection means earlier guidance, better preparedness, and potentially fewer severe cases.
As the UK continues to explore digital health tools, this study highlights how everyday technology may quietly shape the future of disease monitoring. For communities across the diaspora, it is a reminder that public health innovation, when handled responsibly, can benefit everyone.
