Powering Transformation in Health Research with Wearables

Research plays an important role in understanding individual health behaviors, discovering new approaches to prevent disease and improve health, and advancing our understanding of how to care for patients. Yet a common set of challenges can impede progress, among them: recruiting participants, retaining them in the study, understanding real world evidence and experiences, and capturing quality data. More and more, wearables are being recognized for their potential to deliver meaningful health outcomes and reduce the costly burden of healthcare. Until the advent of wearable devices, many types of data, such as quality and quantity of sleep and continuous heart rate tracking, were not easily accessible outside of a lab or clinic visit. 

 With continuing improvements and advancements in technology, user experience and behavior change science, wearable devices are transforming data collection as both measurement and interventional tools, accelerating the role of technology in health research and clinical development. Around the world, researchers are using Fitbit devices to explore the boundaries of what’s possible to detect and prevent illness, help manage chronic disease and optimize overall health through behavior change. To date, there are more than 900 studies using Fitbit devices in our research library. And the areas of study are wide-ranging—from diabetes, heart disease and obesity to mental health, cancer, post-surgery and much more. Examples of this research at work includes:

• The All of Us Research Program, a landmark precision medicine study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has incorporated wearable devices as a key element of their initiative. Working with Scripps Research, Fitbit devices are being distributed to enhance the program’s data resource and inform future research. 
• A study underway with UMass Memorial Health that aims to help prevent and manage cardiometabolic diseases of employees through the use of Fitbit devices, software and health coaching. 
• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s BWEL breast cancer study is evaluating whether weight loss can prevent breast cancer recurrence and serves as an important example of the role wearables can play in studies reaching geographically dispersed populations.
• Researchers from the University of Michigan are using Fitbit devices to help study the mental health of interns during their medical training. 
• Recently, we provided 100 devices to Mayo Clinic to use in a study analyzing sleep and activity patterns in patients who have recovered from COVID-19 to further examine long-term effects of the illness.

The rise of wearables in virtual research studies 

Fueled partly by pandemic safety measures, this past year we’ve made great strides in advancing virtual, digital clinical trials. Amidst the pandemic, we launched the Fitbit Heart Study, which was our first large-scale study to validate an algorithm to identify atrial fibrillation (AFib). The study, conducted entirely virtually, is part of Fitbit’s efforts to make heart health tools more accessible and help reduce the risk of life-threatening events like stroke. We know we have a very engaged user base, but their willingness to participate as citizen scientists has been really great to see in digital research like the Fitbit Heart Study, which enrolled more than 455,000 participants over a 5-month period. 

The findings from our virtual Fitbit COVID-19 Study, which enrolled nearly 200,000 participants, were published in Nature Partner Journal, npj Digital Medicine and showed that breathing rate, resting heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) are all useful metrics for indicating onset of illness. And The Lancet Digital Health published a paper of Fitbit’s large-scale cross-sectional heart rate variability (HRV) study, which aimed to leverage wrist-worn tracking devices using photoplethysmography (PPG) to characterize HRV metrics to better understand variations by age, gender, time of day and physical activity level. This study analyzed aggregated, de-identified data from 8 million individuals across 74 countries around the world, making it the largest known HRV dataset to date.

Addressing health disparities by investing in research

The COVID-19 pandemic magnified many prevalent health disparities, including access to care and services, as well as the burden of disease itself. We’ve also seen an emphasis on the need for greater diversity in health research and clinical trials for a more inclusive representation. As health disparities continue to widen, underrepresented researchers often struggle to obtain the resources needed for innovative interventions. 

I’m proud to share that just last month we announced our first ever Health Equity Research Initiative meant to help address health inequity in underserved populations experiencing health disparities. Through this program, we’ll be awarding up to $500,000 in Fitbit products and services to early career researchers who are actively working on these types of projects. We’ve also partnered with Fitabase, a long-time partner whose data management platform is designed to support innovative research projects using wearable devices, to ensure awardees have the tools to maximize study participation and data collection.

By putting additional resources in the hands of health disparities investigators and encouraging wearable research in the field, we hope to generate new evidence and methods for addressing health disparities that will inform lasting change in traditionally underserved communities. For interested early career researchers, letters of intent are due by 5pm (PDT) on May 28, 2021. Go here to learn more, or to submit a letter of intent.

Our vision to help make the world healthier has never been more important. I am proud of the work Fitbit is doing to help advance and improve the accessibility and utility of vital health research and, in many ways, we are just starting to discover what is possible.