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Apple unveiled three new search companies for Apple Watch users and a dedicated Apple Research application at its press conference Tuesday, illustrating how the company plans to make medical research a key pillar of its health strategy .
And even though the event may have missed some expectations due to the lack of Apple 's supposed sleep tracking application, we believe The company's research initiatives add much more value to its health portfolio, particularly given that Apple owns the sleep tracking device manufacturer, Beddit.
Here is an overview of the three new Apple Watch research programs unveiled at Tuesday's event:
- An audience initiative with the University of Michigan and the World Health Organization (WHO). Boosting the new ability of Apple Watch to passively monitor sound levels in a user's environment, the study aims to uncover information about how the Exposure to noise affects long-term hearing health. According to the WHO, nearly 50% of people aged 12 to 35 in the world (1.1 billion) may lose hearing because of exposure to loud sounds. The WHO said that personal music devices were a source of major concern. It's unclear whether the Apple Watch passive audio monitoring feature is also able to track users' personal volume levels while listening to music or watching videos, since the sounds do not come from no external source – and without this feature, the value of the study the results could be limited.
- Reproductive Health Research in partnership with Harvard and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Apple's partners at Harvard and NIH will exploit data from the company's menstrual cycle tracking application to look for risk factors for diseases such as infertility and osteoporosis . Unveiled in June, the Cycle Tracking app allows users to track their rules, flow and other related symptoms, such as cramps or bloating. It makes sense for Apple to see reproductive health as a valuable area of research: menstruation-tracking apps would be the second most popular teen application in 2016.
- Studies on the heart and movements conducted with the Brigham and Women's Hospital and the American Heart Association (AHA). The details of this study are sparse because Apple has simply stated that the study will look at how device "metrics" can be used as a preventive tool for health by identifying risky users and intervening for the purpose. improvement of "global health". We believe that this study will most likely extract data from the fitness monitoring functions of the Apple Watch, such as its heart rate monitor and its rhythm counter, to examine the links between exercise. and heart health. And if Apple Watch can reduce the risk of heart disease among users, this could potentially help Apple to convince payers of the value of the device as a preventative tool for health: annual medical costs for Heart ailments are expected to rise to more than $ 800 billion by 2030.
Apple is taking advantage of its position as the market leader in portable product sales to drive users toward medical research initiatives – and we believe this will strengthen the company's profile as an invaluable research partner. According to estimates, sales of Apple Watch accounted for 50% of the global portable clothing market in 2018, with more than 22 million units sold.
This gives partners interested in using the Apple Watch for medical research a large pool of integrated participants. One of the major problems in medical research is simply finding participants: a recent study found that 56% of patients do not participate in clinical research simply because there is no option available at the point of care in their community.
But the remote monitoring capabilities of Apple Watch patients, combined with its new search application, could help solve this painful problem: Stanford researchers will bring together more than 400,000 participants for research on the subject. Efficacy of the electrocardiogram of the Apple Watch 3 for the detection of atrial fibrillation.
Although the study yielded mixed results regarding the viability of the Watch as a clinical tool, the researchers were nonetheless excited about the potential of Apple Watch as a medical research platform . And the addition of a dedicated research portal should further strengthen the profile of Apple Watch as an invaluable platform for health researchers.
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