Apple’s ResearchKit wants your health data

With its hugely popular iPhone and new software called ResearchKit, Apple thinks it may have solved a major research problem: how to recruit enough people to make associations between lifestyle and health. But with at least one of the apps associated with ResearchKit, contributing data is a lot of work.

ResearchKit offers five health studies, each with a free app. I gave the cardiovascular disease risk app MyHeart Counts, run by Stanford University, a whirl. To address concerns about data privacy, the app has its own pass code. It also allows participants to choose between sharing data only with Stanford or more widely.

Participants send their physical activity and sleep time to the app for seven days every three months. During that week, participants need

to keep their smartwatches on their wrists or their iPhones in their front pants pockets, a challenge for people like me, as my clothing lacks large pockets.

The app keeps track of step count and activity level. Unfortunately, my iPhone 5s undercounted my steps. Moderate or vigorous activity seemed not to register at all. The app offers a chance to add missed workouts later.

Though MyHeart Counts is free, using it can be costly. The app recommends users take one six-minute short walk wearing a heart rate monitor, a not-inexpensive gadget. Users also need to get their blood pressure and cholesterol levels measured, which may be inconvenient or expensive.

Without cholesterol, the app can’t calculate the user’s risk of heart attack or stroke. While contributing data to MyHeart Counts might be a service to science, it takes a lot of work with little individual return.