More than five years ago, Apple launched three medical studies to test how well its Apple Watch can track a person's mobility and cardiovascular health, changes in hearing and women's health and fertility.
The tech company is now broadening its health research ambitions to use its devices, including iPhones, Apple Watch and AirPods along with third-party devices, for a longitudinal, virtual study to monitor changes in participants’ health, spanning a wide range of health and disease areas.
Apple wants to tap into the devices and apps that individuals use everyday to evaluate the connections between physical and mental health as well as social determinants, such as whether someone lives alone or with family, and how all these aspects of health factor into a person's overall well-being.
The aim is to identify signals in a person's health data to potentially detect a health condition as changes in health can affect one or more parts of the body, Apple executives and researchers said.
Researchers are interested in exploring how detecting changes in hearing health and could reduce the risk for cognitive decline. Other potential areas for study include mental health’s impact on heart rate or how sleep can influence exercise.
By using devices like smartwatches and wearables, researchers can study the influence of lifestyle and daily habits on health.
The study aims to enroll a diverse and large-scale population, Apple executives said. Apple did not provide details on how many participates it plans to enroll in the study.
Apple is teaming up with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a research hospital and a major teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, for the Apple Health Study. The tech giant teamed up with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the American Heart Association for its heart and movement study, which kicked off in September 2019.
Like the previous three studies, the Apple Health Study will be available in the Research app.
Since launching the Research app, Apple's health teams have gained "valuable insights" that have helped the tech company develop new tools for users, including the Vitals app on Apple Watch and Walking Steadiness on iPhone, Sumbul Desai, M.D., Apple’s vice president of health, said. These features have "surfaced new insights in areas of health that have long been undervalued, like menstrual and hearing health," Desai said.
"Research and validation are part of the foundation of all of our work in health, supporting the innovative features we bring to our users across devices," Desai said. "We’re thrilled to bring forward the Apple Health Study, which will only accelerate our understanding of health and technology across the human body, both physically and mentally.”
The Apple Health Study spans a number of health and disease areas including activity, aging, cardiovascular health, circulatory health, cognition, hearing, menstrual health, mental health, metabolic health, mobility, neurological health, respiratory health and sleep.
“We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of how technology can improve our understanding of human health. We are excited to be part of the Apple Health Study, as it will continue to explore connections across different areas of health using technology that so many people carry with them every day," said Calum MacRae, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiologist, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and principal investigator of the Apple Health Study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in a statement.
The study also is designed to explore changes in health and how technology can help identify important insights for future product development.