Skip to main content

Apple will conduct three new crowdsourced health studies using Apple Watch

Apple announced a new Apple Research app during Tuesday’s “By Innovation Only” event that will pair with the Apple Watch and the iPhone to crowdsource health data for future research. 

The company hopes that anyone with an Apple Watch will be able to share their data with scientists, enabling them to improve their research. The first three studies conducted on the Apple Research app will be a hearing study, a women’s health study, and a heart and movement study. 

The hearing study conducted with the World Health Organization and the University of Michigan will analyze how daily sound exposure will impact your long-term hearing health.

The women’s health study will look at menstrual cycles and mensuration tracking to see how it can screen infertility and osteoporosis in women, and is in partnership with Harvard School of Public Health and the National Institute of Health. 

Finally, the heart and movement study conducted with the American Heart Association and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston will take attempt to better detect early warning signs for heart disease and help create future innovations for overall health.

“We are excited to be working with all the study participants and with Apple to identify the features of complex human physiology that lead to different outcomes in wellness or chronic disease, and to use this information to empower individuals to maximize their own health,” said Calum MacRae, the vice chair of Scientific Innovation for the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, in the official press release.

People can choose to participate in these studies beginning later this year by enrolling through the Apple Research app. You can decide which data you want to share on the app. 

“It gives all of us an amazing opportunity to participate in health research that could lead to innovations that could improve our health and the health of future generations,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook, during the unveiling of the app. 

Apple said that over 400,000 people participated in its heart study that monitored irregular heart rates, and that the success of that study prompted the creation of the three new studies announced on Tuesday. The Research app will be available to download later this year. 

Editors' Recommendations

Allison Matyus
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Allison Matyus is a general news reporter at Digital Trends. She covers any and all tech news, including issues around social…
Apple Watch’s exciting feature road map is stacked
Apple Watch Series 7 worn on someone's wrist.

Apple is reportedly prepping a smorgasbord of exciting new features and capabilities for the Apple Watch in the coming years. As per a Bloomberg report, Apple is planning to add new features targeting sleep, fitness, and medication management for women. The Workout app for Apple Watch is touted to get new metrics and support for more exercise types.

A body temperature sensor is also said to be in the pipeline, and might appear on the Apple Watch Series 8 slated to arrive this fall. Per a report from The Wall Street Journal, the temperature sensing-capability will come in handy for fertility management, telling women about the state of their ovulation cycle.

Read more
Did Apple just forget about its brand-new Studio Display?
The Mac Studio and Studio Display on a desk.

Apple neglected to include the Studio Display in its latest iOS update, and the consequences were pretty bad: A lot of users ran into an error when the monitor tried to download the patch.

The issue came to light when Apple updated iOS to 15.4.1 and stopped supporting the previous version.

Read more
New report says Apple is building a secret folding device
Aasus Zenbook 17 Fold folded in half.

Apple is working with LG on a foldable display destined for a brand-new, top-secret device that’s yet to be announced. That’s according to a new report from The Elec, and it follows similar claims from reliable tipsters that Apple has some sort of hybrid device up its sleeve.

The Elec’s report explains that LG Display is set to provide HP with a folding 17-inch glass panel that will enter production later this year. These OLED screens will offer 4K resolution and will find their way into a future 11-inch laptop from HP.

Read more