Apple Focused on Healthcare Initiates Depression Research with UCLA

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] Apple, which has been expanding its digital healthcare business, has now partnered with UCLA to start research on depression.

According to the economic media CNBC on the 4th (local time), UCLA will conduct a study over the next three years to examine how sleep, physical activity, heart rate, and daily routines affect anxiety and depression symptoms. Apple, which co-designed this study, is responsible for collecting and providing related data through its digital devices such as the iPhone and Apple Watch.

The number of research participants will start with a pilot study of 150 people this week and expand to 3,000. Due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19, the study will be conducted remotely.

Apple has been expanding its healthcare business. Based on data collected from the iPhone and Apple Watch, it introduced its own health information platform, HealthKit, and included features such as sleep tracking and automatic handwashing detection in the new smartwatch operating system (OS) watchOS 7. The global mobile healthcare market size is estimated to reach $320 billion by 2027.

Dr. John Torous of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), affiliated with Harvard Medical School, mentioned the increasing number of studies linking behavioral patterns and health based on data collected from digital devices, evaluating them as "large-scale studies truly aimed at answering the key question of whether digital technology can be effective for mental health."

CNBC also reported that Apple’s smartwatch, the Apple Watch, is focusing on the medical and health sectors, and that interest is growing among companies wanting to utilize data collected from smartphones and wearable devices beyond Apple.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.