Are you ready to share health data off the iPhone?


Apple Women

Are you willing to share information about your menstrual cycles or hearing loss on your iPhone and Apple Watchto contribute to medical research?

Starting Thursday, you can download the Research app in the App Store and see if you are eligible to participate in the first three long-term medical studies. Apple announced the app in September.

There’s a women’s health study conducted in partnership with Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) with the goal of advancing understanding of menstrual cycles and how they relate to various health conditions: polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), infertility, osteoporosis, menopausal transition.

A second study is focused on the heart and movement and is  designed to examine the factors that impact cardiovascular health and potentially cause a person’s mobility and overall well-being to deteriorate. 

This study, which requires an iPhone 6s or later and an Apple Watch (any model), can help signal early warning signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib), heart disease or declining mobility. Apple is partnering with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the American Heart Association. The study will likely last at least five years.

Apple Hearing Study within the Research app.

Lastly, Apple is teaming with the University of Michigan on a hearing study that will leverage headphone usage and environmental sound exposure data through the iPhone and the Noise app on an Apple Watch (Series 4 and Series 5) to explore how both can impact a person’s ability to hear over time. 

Participants will be randomly assigned to two groups to assess if Health app notifications, when loud sounds are detected, can motivate users to modify their listening behaviors. Apple says it will share data from the study with the World Health Organization to raise awareness around safe listening practices.

Users will corroborate the data by answering qualitative survey questions — did you attend a concert, say, or get a hearing aid? — and take baseline tests to determine where their hearing levels are at as a starting point. Participants will also be able to take hearing tests, using headphones, through the app.

Apple claims your privacy will be protected

Even as scrutiny of big tech grows in Washington and statehouses around the country, the increasingly data-hungry industry is still in hot pursuit of your personal information.




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