'Your Emotional City' Study

'Your Emotional City' is a joint project of Interdisciplinary Forum Neurourbanistik e.V.,  Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Futurium Berlin, House of the Future, and is funded under the Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and the Länder by the Berlin University Alliance. With the help of Berlin citizens and the Urban Mind App the project will investigate stress and well-being in the city. The aim is to create an emotional heat map of Berlin in order to explore how cities can be made more liveable in the future.

Deiner emotionale Stadt: German text

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1. What is the aim of the study?

It is known that stress-related mental illnesses occur more frequently among city residents. With this project, we therefore want to explore when and where the city causes stress. With this citizen science project, we would like to contribute together with you to identifying risk factors for mental health, but also the positive resources of the city. This can help urban planners and politicians to include such factors in their planning concepts and thus lead to a long-term improvement in the mental health, well-being and quality of life of city dwellers. Our common goal is to create an emotional city map of Berlin. Furthermore, one goal of this study is to evaluate and establish new citizen science methods that actively involve citizens in research processes.

The survey is an app-based questionnaire via the app Urban Mind, which was originally developed as part of a research project at King's College London. The app operator is Nomad Projects, based in London. Urban Mind was developed as part of a research project by King's College London, landscape architects J&L Gibbons and the arts foundation Nomad Projects.  

2. What are the requirements for participants?

Participation is open to interested persons aged 18 and over who complete the study questions in German, English, Russian, Turkish or Arabic and who are currently in Berlin or live in Berlin. Consent forms will be provided in German, English, Russian, Turkish and Arabic. No compensation will be provided for study participation.  

3. How will the study proceed?

In this study, you will become a researcher by using the app to record your emotions and how you feel about the current social, physical and natural environment around you as you go about your daily life in Berlin. You will be asked to provide information about this via the app three times a day and, if you agree, will receive reminder messages for each time. Answering the questions takes an estimated 2-3 minutes each. If you agree, the app will record your location based on GPS. At the beginning of the study, we collect one-time general information on age, origin, gender and a description of your place of residence. This one-time collection takes about 5 minutes. The data collection period is one week. After the one-week data collection period, you can uninstall the app. However, if you do not uninstall the app after that, you will be able to participate in future surveys. If you do not wish to do so, please uninstall the app after the one-week survey! The project is accompanied by information events at the Futurium Berlin, which focus on the exchange between citizens and scientists on the project’s research questions.

4. What are the risks of participating in this study?

There is no known risk to completing the questionnaire, except that it may contribute to a reflection on your personal experience of your particular location. Recording your geographical location may slightly reduce the battery life of your mobile phone, so you may need to charge it more frequently. The study data is stored and analysed pseudonymously, so there is some residual risk of inference to your person. The risk of your person being identified in the event of unauthorised access to the data is considered very low, but is theoretically present (e.g. if you are the only person with special characteristics within a wide geographical radius). The project management explicitly refrains from re-identification and the cooperation partners of the project are obliged to refrain from re-identification steps.

5. What is the benefit of the study?

The study results, in particular the identification of factors that influence the individual's experience of stress in the city, will serve as a basis for the development of urban planning concepts that focus on promoting the mental health of residents. The individual participants have the benefit of an enhanced sense of self-efficacy, through active participation as citizen scientists, with an active role in data collection and data interpretation.  

6. What insurance coverage do participants have?

No special participant insurance has been taken out for this study. The employees of Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin participating in the study are insured against liability claims resulting from their culpable conduct through their employer's liability insurance.

7. What rights and obligations do participants have?

You have the right at any time to ask questions about any matter to the study director and his/her research assistants concerning the study. This would inform the study management of your participation. Through such contact, there would be the possibility that your anonymity in relation to the data entered would be removed, provided that you read out and enter the user ID generated by the app in the app settings and this is associated with your person. Please address your questions to:

Prof. Dr. med. Mazda Adli (head of the study)

Head of Research Area Affective Disorders
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Charité Campus Mitte
Charité Platz 1, 10117 Berlin
Phone: +49-30-450-517 296
E-Mail: mazda.adli@charité.de

Prof. Dr. phil. Joerg Fingerhut (head of the study)

Head of Research Group Neurourbanism
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Professor for Philosophy of Mind at LMU Munich (substitute)
Senior Researcher at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
E-Mail: joerg.fingerhut@hu-berlin.de

To exercise the aforementioned rights, please contact the entity responsible for processing the personal data:

Data Protection Officer of Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin

Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin
Phone: +49-30-450 580016
E-Mail: datenschutzbeauftragte@charite.de

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority responsible for data protection: the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. In the event that you consider data processing to be unlawful, you have the option of filing a complaint with the competent supervisory authority for Charité — Universitätsmedizin Berlin:

Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information

Friedrichstraße 219, 10969 Berlin Phone: +49-30-13 88 90
Fax: +49-30-21 55 05-0
E-Mail: mailbox@datenschutz-berlin.de.

8. Data subject rights and withdrawal of consent

Participation in this study is on a voluntary basis. You have the option to cancel the study at any time - without giving reasons. You will not suffer any disadvantages as a result. During your study participation, you can delete all your study data (concerns pseudonymous and sensitive as well as photo and GPS data) from the app and the app server at any time via "Settings" in the app. If you have already completed your study participation (after 7 days), this can only be done if you contact us with your User ID (see below).

By providing your User ID, you have the right to:

• Information on all data entered, processed and stored by you.
• Correction, deletion (according to Art. 16 and Art. 21 EU-DSGVO) or restriction of processing (according to Art. 18 EU-DSGVO) or also a transfer of your individual data (according to Art. 2016 EU-DSGVO).
• Objection to the data processing of personal data (e-mail address) voluntarily provided by you.
• Information about the recipients to whom the de-identified data and (separately from this) the identifying data are or have been forwarded (in accordance with Art. 15 EU-DSGVO).
• Information on the data flow (storage, forwarding and processing of the de-identified data and e-mail addresses).

Without your User ID, we will not be able to locate your data, as the study management or the app developer do not have a link between your name and your User ID. You can find your user ID in the “Settings” of the Urban Mind app. Once you have deleted the app, it is no longer possible to delete, correct or restrict the processing of your data, as you will then no longer have access to the User ID and will no longer be able to retrieve it - unless you have previously made a separate note of your User ID or have already contacted us with your User ID.

9. What are the ethical and legal foundations?

This study is conducted under consideration of the Professional Code of Conduct for Physicians (BO-Ä). The project complies with the Memorandum for Good Scientific and Epidemiological Practice of the DFG. The Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Charité Campus Mitte and the scientific cooperation partners at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin undertake to comply with all the above restrictions in the conduct of the study. The data protection concept follows the EU Data Protection Regulation (EU-DSGVO) and the Berlin Data Protection Act (BlnDSG).

10. Data processing

Prof. Dr. Mazda Adli, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, as part of the study management, is responsible for data processing in the sense of data protection law. Nomad Projects will continue to process the data. The contact details of the study management are given above. The pseudonymised data provided will be stored by the app developer Nomad Projects with a secure external cloud service provider (Amazon Web Services, AWS) in the European Economic Area (EEA) under password protection. The pseudonymised data is retrieved at regular intervals from the cloud server by the app operator, Nomad Projects, and then forwarded in encrypted form to Charité for evaluation. In this process, Nomad Projects theoretically has access to the data. Within a week, the data is checked for data integrity by authorised employees of Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and then immediately deleted from the Urban Mind app's AWS server by an authorised Nomad Projects employee. In the long term, the data is thus only stored on the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin server, for at least ten years. In pseudonymised, impersonalised form, the data (e.g. GPS data) is deidentified on the basis of a data use agreement and shared with cooperation partners in an access-restricted manner, as well as reduced in detail for data protection reasons, and then shared with other research institutions under usage conditions. This should allow future research projects as well as the project's cooperation partners, such as Futurium Berlin and rbb Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, to access the data. The pseudonymised and additionally less specific, de-identified data entail an extremely low risk of inference to you as a person.

Informed consent

I have read the study information and have been informed about the nature, significance and scope of the planned examination. I have read and understood the information on the purpose of the study. In addition, I have had sufficient opportunity to obtain information and clarification in writing via the contact details provided.

I feel physically and mentally able to participate in the study. My attention has been drawn to the fact that participation may be revoked at any time by either party without giving reasons and without any disadvantage to me.

Now that you have downloaded and installed the app, we would first like to inform you about data protection. I agree to the collection of sensitive data, including my origin (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a and Art. 9 para. 2 lit. a EU-DSGVO). I also agree that the pseudonymised data provided by me will be stored by the app operator Nomad Projects at a secure external cloud service provider (Amazon Web Services, AWS) in the European Economic Area (EEA) under password protection. The pseudonymised data is retrieved at regular intervals by the app operator, Nomad Projects from the cloud server and forwarded in encrypted form to Charité for evaluation. In this process, Nomad Projects theoretically has temporary access to your data. Within a week, the data is checked for data integrity by authorised employees of Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and then immediately deleted from the Urban Mind app's AWS server by an authorised Nomad Projects employee. In the long term, the data is thus only stored on the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin server, for at least ten years. In pseudonymised, impersonalised form, the data (e.g. GPS data) is deidentified on the basis of a data use agreement and shared with cooperation partners in an access-restricted manner, as well as reduced in detail for data protection reasons, and then shared with other research institutions under usage conditions. This should allow future research projects as well as the project's cooperation partners, such as Futurium Berlin and rbb Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, to access the data. The pseudonymised and additionally less specific, de-identified data entail an extremely low risk of inference to you as a person.

By agreeing to this declaration, you confirm that you consent to data being collected from you when using the app. You can revoke and deactivate your consent to the collection of GPS data and to the activation of your smartphone camera at any time in the "Settings" of your smartphone. The same applies to your consent to receive reminder messages from the app; you can also revoke this at any time via "Settings". During your study participation, you can delete all your study data (concerns pseudonymous and sensitive as well as photo and GPS data) from the app and the app server at any time via "Settings" in the app. If you have already completed your study participation (after 7 days), this can only be done if you contact us with your User ID (see above). You can end your study participation at any time by deleting the app. I hereby voluntarily agree to participate in the planned study. I have had enough time to decide. The study information and consent form can be viewed again at any time in the Urban Mind app on my smartphone.

By tapping "I agree," I acknowledge that:

• I am at least 18 years old
• I hereby voluntarily agree to participate in the planned app-based questionnaire survey
• I agree that the results of the study will be published in an anonymized form that does not allow any direct inference to my person
• I agree with a transfer of the deidentified data to selected cooperation partners for follow-up studies

Before you get started, we have one more request for you. We would like to ask you to take a photo of your surroundings during the surveys. It would be important that you do this regularly. This would help us a lot with the evaluation. Under no circumstances should you take pictures of faces or other identifying things (e.g. doorbell signs, street names, etc.). If you agree to take one photo per survey, please agree to the following question about activating your camera through your smartphone. If you do not agree with the photo, you can skip taking a photo or object to the activation of your camera at any time. You can also deactivate your consent at any time later in the "Settings" of your smartphone.

Additional agreement for future contacts within the scope of this study

By e-mail you can have your e-mail address deleted at any time if you have subscribed to the newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter by voluntarily entering your e-mail address in a free text field. You are advised not to enter any other personal information in the free text field provided for e-mail addresses. If you enter personal information in the free text field, it cannot be guaranteed that your anonymity will be preserved, as the app provider Nomad Projects also theoretically has access to this data. The identifying data (email address), for the purpose of contacting you later, is stored in a list on the server of the Urban Mind app (Amazon Web Services) in an access-secured and password-protected manner. After the encrypted forwarding of the list to the server of the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, this data will be deleted from the server of the Urban Mind app within one week. Before the data is forwarded, the app provider Nomad Projects theoretically has access to the data. Nomad Projects guarantees the technical monitoring of the app and has undertaken to refrain from re-identification attempts. The email addresses are encrypted and forwarded to the cooperation partner Futurium Berlin, which manages the study newsletter. The list with identifying data is kept or passed on separately from the pseudonymous study data at all times. Thus, at no time is it possible to link contact data and pseudonymous study data. Only if you contact the study management, provide your User ID, e-mail address or plain name generated by the app, can a re-identification take place, e.g. for the purpose of a desired deletion of the data. After 10 years, the identifying data will be deleted from the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin server. Until then, you can obtain information about your identifying data (i.e. the e-mail address provided) at any time and request the deletion of this data. Thus, you have the possibility at any time to object to the further use of your identifying data in the context of this study or in the context of continuation studies.

I agree that in the event of a continuation of this study or follow-up studies, my identifying data (in the form of the email address) may be used to contact me again. I agree to be contacted via newsletter in the event of follow-up studies or notifications of results, updates and event information on the current study. For this purpose, my email address will be transferred to the Charité in encrypted form via intermediate storage on servers of the Urban Mind app (Amazon Web Services) and stored here for a period of 10 years. Before the data is transferred, the app provider theoretically has access to my data. From Charité, the email addresses are forwarded in encrypted form to Futurium Berlin, which has also committed itself to EU-DSGVO-compliant data processing. The list with the data set is sent within the Futurium to the employees of the communication department (currently seven employees). There, it is entered into the backend of the newsletter provider CleverReach, which handles the data storage and data processing in compliance with the EU GDPR. The list is then deleted on the Futurium servers. If a request for deletion of the email address is submitted to one of the project managers, the email address will also be deleted from this database.

If I have any questions or other concerns, I can contact the following person:

Head of study

Prof. Dr. med. Mazda Adli

Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Charité Campus Mitte
Charité Platz 1, 10117 Berlin
Phone: +49 30 450 517 296
E-Mail: mazda.adli@charité.de

Prof. Dr. phil. Joerg Fingerhut

Berlin School of Mind and Brain
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin
E-Mail: joerg.fingerhut@hu-berlin.de

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