Abstract—We present in this paper a web-based system called “HelpMeBreathe” for managing asthma. The proposed system provides analytical tools, which allow better understanding of environmental triggers of asthma, hence better support of data-driven decision making. The developed system provides warning messages to a specific asthma patient if the weather in his/her area might cause any difficulty in breathing or could trigger an asthma attack. HelpMeBreathe collects, stores, and analyzes individuals’ moving trajectories and health conditions as well as environmental data. It then processes and displays the patients’ data through an analytical tool that leads to an effective decision making by physicians and other decision makers. Keywords—Asthma, environmental triggers, map interface, peak flow, web-based system. I. INTRODUCTION STHMA is a chronic lung disease that inflames and narrows the airways of the lungs. People with asthma frequently experience periods of wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughing [1]. Asthma affects more than 235 million people's lives globally [2]. It affects productivity in work, keeps students from their classes, and costs millions to treat. In 2014, it was estimated that about 105 million dirhams was spent on treating 139,092 asthmatics in the United Arab Emirates [3]. Patients sometimes think too little of the seriousness of their asthma and become less likely to pay attention to symptoms when they are not severe, which may lead afterward to serious asthma attacks. People with asthma demand treatment guidelines and education on how they can properly control their symptoms and condition to reduce asthma attacks [4]. It is well known that asthma is affected by the environment, and asthma attacks have been linked to exposure to environmental factors such air pollution, temperature, and humidity. Furthermore, changes in weather, as people change their location has a severe effect on people suffering from asthma. It is estimated that 64 per cent of asthmatics in the UAE suffered sudden severe attacks in 2015 [2]. With HelpMeBreathe, patients are alerted as they travel around the country whenever they enter an area with high risk of asthma attacks. The alert informs a specific patient that an asthma attack may happen, and in turn prepares the patient for Shayma Alkobaisi is with the College of Information Technology, UAEU, UAE, (corresponding author, phone: 971-3-7130555, fax: 971-3-7136901, e- mail: Shayma.alkobaisi@uaeu.ac.ae). Alia Al Rayssi, Mahra Al Marar, Alyazia Alkhaili, Reem Al Dhaheri and Hoda Amer are with the College of Information Technology, UAEU, UAE (e- mail: {201200269, 201205883, 201203282, 201207920, hamer}@uaeu.ac.ae). it beforehand. The proposed system also provides a data analysis tool for decision making. It generates important interactive information in an easy and useful way to help decision makers, such as physicians, know the state of the patients at any time in order to make better decisions that are data driven. HelpMeBreathe uses individuals’ moving trajectories, environmental data from weather stations, and individuals’ health conditions to better understand the relationship between environmental exposure and human health. It is built on top of the Smart Connected Health Alert System (SCHAS) [5], which is an on-going project that researchers and developers are currently working on. The proposed system’s context view is displayed in Fig. 1. Fig. 1 A context view of HelpMeBreathe The top three qualities that the developed system is designed to provide are: 1. Simplicity: simple to understand and use; a. The system choses to implement components simplicity and readability over the efficiency. b. It is simple to understand and it provides ability to add new components easily. c. The system uses simple frameworks including any third- party tools. d. The data are managed in a way that allows it to be used for many purposes. e. The system uses open source frameworks. 2. Exploratory: the system allows for exploratory activities such as visualization of location, movements, overlay of environmental factors, etc. a. This includes ability to view data in multiple ways (tabular, graphical, spatial, etc.). b. It also includes customizing the views (changing layers in GIS). 3. Maintainable: The system allows quick detection of any HelpMeBreathe: A Web-Based System for Asthma Management Alia Al Rayssi, Mahra Al Marar, Alyazia Alkhaili, Reem Al Dhaheri, Shayma Alkobaisi, Hoda Amer A World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Computer and Information Engineering Vol:11, No:6, 2017 729 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 11(6) 2017 scholar.waset.org/1307-6892/10007263 International Science Index, Computer and Information Engineering Vol:11, No:6, 2017 waset.org/Publication/10007263