A survey on semanticized and personalized health recommender systems

Abstract

Health 3.0 is a health-related extension of the Web 3.0 concept. It is based on the semantic Web which provides for semantically organizing electronic health records of individuals. Health 3.0 is rapidly gaining ground as a new research topic in many academic and industrial disciplines. Due to the recent rapid spread of wearable sensors and smart devices with access to social media, migrating health services from the traditional centre-based health system to personal health care is inevitable. In this current era of greater personalization, treating patients' health problems according to their profile and medical data gathered is possible using the latest information technologies. Consequently, personalized health recommender systems have gained importance. Empowering the utility of advanced Web technology in personalized health systems is still challenging due to pressing issues, such as lack of low cost and accurate smart medical sensors and wearable devices, existing investment in legacy Web system architecture in health sector, heterogeneity of medical data gathered by myriad health care institutions and isolated health services, and interoperability issues as well as multi-dimensionality of medical data. By tracing recent developments, this paper offers a systematic review through recent research on semantic Web-enabled personalized health systems, namely, semanticized personalized health recommender systems with the key enabling technologies, major applications, and successful case studies. Critical questions derived from the research studies were discussed, and main directions of open issues were identified leading to recommendations for future study in the field of personalized health recommender systems.