Making the world a healthier place just got a lot easier. We invite you to join over 200,000 people contributing to groundbreaking research using Apple Watch and iPhone. Your participation will add to an unprecedented project that has already led to new insights in human health and advancements in Apple’s health technologies.
Until now, conducting large-scale health studies has been time-consuming and expensive. Multiple factors have also limited the diversity of participants in research. Devices like Apple Watch and iPhone are changing this dynamic, leading to expansive studies with increased inclusion. With your permission, meaningful health information can be captured, including signals from your heart, your level of motion and activity, and your sound exposure levels throughout the day. With the Research app, volunteering to help advance medical understanding has been greatly simplified.1 You can sign up for studies right from your iPhone. If you meet the criteria for a given study, you’re in. It’s that easy.
Nothing is more personal than your health information. Helping you keep it confidential and secure is as important to us as it is to you. What you choose to share for research, and with which study, is controlled entirely by you. Any data collected through the Research app will be encrypted if you have a passcode set on your device. Once shared, it is stored securely in a system within Apple that is designed to meet the technical safeguard requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Apple will not have access to any contact information or other identifying data that you provide through the Research app. And you can withdraw from any study at any time, ending any future data collection.
A collaboration between the American Heart Association and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate. This study uses Apple Watch and iPhone to provide insight into the links between physical activity and heart health over time.2 Findings have already contributed to advancements in fall detection on Apple Watch and Walking Steadiness — a first-of-its-kind metric that provides insights into fall risk on iPhone. Using these two devices, researchers can gain a better understanding of potential early warning signs to create interventions and products that may help us all lead longer, healthier, and more active lives.
Apple is teaming up with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to gain a deeper understanding of how certain demographic and lifestyle factors affect menstrual cycles and gynecologic conditions including infertility, menopause, and PCOS. The study has already helped researchers better understand reproductive behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, and improved period and fertile window predictions in the Cycle Tracking app.
Data from Apple Watch and iPhone, along with participants’ survey responses, will help inform the development of innovative products for menstrual cycles, as well as risk assessment and early screening of gynecologic conditions.
Conducted in conjunction with the University of Michigan, this groundbreaking study will advance the understanding of how hearing could be impacted over time by exposure to sound at certain levels. Researchers have already collected exposure data from 400 million hours of environmental sounds and supplemented this research with lifestyle surveys to analyze how sound exposure affects hearing, stress levels, and cardiovascular health. The study data will also be shared with the World Health Organization as a contribution to its Make Listening Safe initiative.
Discoveries in medical research are often limited by the number of participants who can be recruited, the amount of data that can be captured, and the duration of studies. Research using Apple Watch and iPhone expands the limits of what is possible.
Analysis performed March 2022.
You can start making your contribution to health research right away. Simply download the Research app and enroll in a study. Humanity says thank you.
The redesigned Health app makes it easier than ever to organize and access your important health information.