Detecting contexts which are 'ripe' for an impulsive behavior such as cigarette smoking.

What is it about?

This paper introduces the general concept of 'opportunity' context or when and what environments are ripe for the occurrences of impulsive behavior such as smoking. In the process, from the GPS traces of users, we have developed a method to identify the 'smoking hotspots' or the micro-locations which are personal (outside office building) or general places (inside bars) where people are usually observed to smoke. Moreover, we identify the time of days when people usually smoke. We hope that with the appropriate data set, our model can be extended to detect moments of impulsive behaviors such as binge drinking, overeating, impulsive buying, and gambling.

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Why is it important?

Detection of the environments which are 'risky' for impulsive behaviors, can help facilitate just-in-time-interventions so as to prevent or delay the occurrences of impulsive behaviors. Our hope is that this work will help move forward the research on digital health and interventions.