The data collected by Apple Watches and compiled in its Health app is helping users stay active and well and feeding scientific studies, the U.S.-based tech giant said in a new report illustrating how the company views health care as key to its future. The 59-page document cites its work at hospitals and universities across America and in the United Kingdom and Europe—but just one in Canada.
What’s the Canadian study? At Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN), cardiologist Dr. Heather Ross is leading a project to see how data from an Apple Watch compares to more standard tests in assessing progressive heart failure.
What are some other projects Apple is supporting? Researchers at the University of North Carolina medical school are monitoring 4,000 women, looking for a genetic cause of postpartum depression. The Mount Sinai Health System in New York is researching the psychological impacts of COVID-19 infections and has data suggesting the smartwatch can help predict positive tests as much as a week in advance. Researchers at UCLA are examining measurements of sleep, physical activity and heart rates to detect links to symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Apple itself is working with researchers on projects examining links between menstrual cycles and health conditions, seeking unexpected health effects from noisy environments and studying how mobility affects heart health.
What do they have in common? Lots of participants and measuring things, such as daily activity patterns and sleep habits, that are hard to gauge in labs. Apple said the study on menstrual cycles used data from 30,000 people to connect irregular cycles to cases of polycystic ovary syndrome; the Apple Heart and Movement Study drew on data from 100,000 participants to study fall risks.
“For many key fitness metrics, cohorts within the study are now 10 times larger than any prior studies,” the company’s report said.
Is there a reason this kind of work is difficult in Canada? A lot of our health data is atomized—carved up among GPs, specialists, hospitals and other providers, with different standards in different provinces.
With 909 acute-care beds and 32,562 stays recorded in 2020–2021, UHN is one of the country’s biggest hospital networks—but it’s dwarfed by New York’s Mount Sinai network (3,808 beds and 133,283 stays). The main hospital in UNC’s network of six has 803 beds by itself. They and UCLA have big networks of family-medicine clinics, too, with hoards of patient information.
To do big-data research, you need big data, and at least for now, Canada doesn’t have it.
