Between Amsterdam-Zuidoost and Amsterdam-Zuid lies a nine-year gap in healthy life years, says Bart Baselmans, senior lecturer in Biomedical Technology at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA). High blood pressure and high cholesterol are far more common in neighborhoods such as Zuidoost and Nieuw-West. Together with the Dutch Heart Foundation (Hartstichting), LOA Foundation and HvA Buurtcampus, the HvA therefore organizes HARTstikke Gezondweken (HARTstikke Healthy Weeks), where residents can get a free health check at familiar places such as community centers, churches and mosques. Almost 3,000 people have already taken part in three city districts.

Measuring alone is not enough. Volunteers and students find it difficult to explain a measurement in an understandable way, and neighborhood professionals lack an overview for referring residents. In the three-year project AI als schakel, the partners are therefore developing two privacy-friendly AI systems. The first helps volunteers and students interpret measurement results, based on guidelines from the Dutch College of General Practitioners and the Health Council of the Netherlands. The second is a matching bot that connects residents to suitable local offerings, filtered by cost, language and cultural background. The system does not give medical advice, and all data stays within the HvA’s secure environment. “It is and remains human work,” says Baselmans.

Privacy and ethics are central: an ethics committee reviews the project, participants give explicit consent, and all considerations are recorded in a public logbook. Rosalie Neuvel of Buurtcampus Amsterdam-Zuidoost stresses the importance of cultural sensitivity: “What you put into such a system is what comes out.” Wiek Dirks of the Heart Foundation also sees the experiences from Amsterdam as valuable nationwide for the Hartcheckpunten (Heart Checkpoints).