Apple Watch, other wearables increasingly used to manage chronic health conditions, study says
Research conducted by Cardiogram co-founder Brandon Ballinger, and shared with AppleInsider, aims to shed light on burgeoning use case trends related to health-tracking wearable devices like Apple Watch.
Delving into Cardiogram’s own data—anonymized to protect user privacy—Ballinger discovered wearables are no longer limited to what he describes as the “worried well,” or relatively healthy owners who want access to basic health tracking functions. In particular, the average Apple Watch owner is “more likely than the general population to manage a chronic health condition like sleep apnea, hypertension, diabetes, or atrial fibrillation.”
Backing up his claims, Ballinger notes more than a quarter of Cardiogram’s user base report having at least one chronic condition. The app is currently in use by more than half a million people across Apple’s watchOS, Google’s WearOS, and Garmin wearables platforms.
Some 14% of users have diagnosed sleep apnea, almost double the U.S. average reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The research found 5.6% suffer from atrial fibrillation, triple the average rate recorded by the CDC, while rates of diabetes and hypertension rates are in line with the general population.
The study’s results, particularly those related to distribution of users with atrial fibrillation, are potentially colored by the data source. Cardiogram is an app that helps users track and decipher Apple Watch heart rate data, and is thus downloaded by people interested in those topics. Further, Cardiogram is involved in, and actively seeks participants for, ongoing research conducted as part of the University of California, San Francisco’s Health eHeart Study, which seeks to determine the medical potential of consumer wearables.
