New holistic Apple Health Study launches today in Apple Research app

On Wednesday, Apple is launching the Apple Health Study, which aims to further understand how technology — including iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods — can play a role in advancing and improving physical health, mental health, and overall wellbeing. Available in the Research app, the study will also explore relationships between various areas of health, such as mental health’s impact on heart rate, or how sleep can influence exercise. The study is being conducted in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a leading research hospital and a major teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School.

“We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of how technology can improve our understanding of human health,” 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. “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.”

In medical research, discoveries are often limited by the number of participants who can be recruited, the amount of data that can be captured, and the duration of a given study — but Apple devices expand the possibilities. The Apple Health Study builds on learnings from the Apple Women’s Health Study, the Apple Hearing Study, and the Apple Heart and Movement Study, which combined have more than 350,000 participants across the U.S.

This new longitudinal, virtual study aims to understand how data from technology — including Apple and third-party devices — can be used to predict, detect, monitor, and manage changes in participants’ health. Additionally, researchers will explore connections across different areas of health. The 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, neurologic health, respiratory health, sleep, and more.

“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,” said Sumbul Desai, M.D., Apple’s vice president of Health. “The valuable insights we’ve gained since launching the Research app have allowed us to bring innovative new tools to our users — including the Vitals app on Apple Watch and Walking Steadiness on iPhone — and surface new insights in areas of health that have long been undervalued, like menstrual and hearing health. 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 is designed to explore changes in health and how technology can help identify important insights for future product development. When one aspect of a person’s health changes, their body can emit a signal, either physically or emotionally. Changes in health can affect one or more parts of the body, and others may affect wellbeing overall, so helping to identify these changes earlier can help offer a more proactive approach to health. For example, early detection of a change in hearing health could reduce the risk for cognitive decline.

The Research app broadens how medical research is conducted by uniting academic medical institutions, healthcare organizations, and Apple products users. Participation is voluntary, and participants choose which data types they’d like to share with researchers, and are able to stop sharing at any time. Apple does not have access to identifying information, such as contact information that participants provide through the Research app. Participants can withdraw from any study at any time, ending future data collection.

MacDailyNews Note: For those interested, the Apple Health Study is currently open for enrollment through <a href=”https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-research/id1463884356″Apple’s Research app> for participants who live in the U.S., meet the minimum age requirements, and complete the informed consent process.

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