How Universities Are Using Wearable Tech To Understand New Health Data

Universities have started turning to wearable technology to help track and understand health conditions on a scale that was not possible before. Garmin announced at its Health Summit in New York that it has entered into its largest research partnership to date with King’s College London. The collaboration forms the Enhanced Maternal and Baby Results with AI-supported Care and Empowerment programme, also known as EMBRACE.

The study will equip up to 40,000 adults worldwide with Garmin smartwatches and fitness trackers. These will measure things like heart rate, sleep patterns, activity levels and other biometric signals. According to Garmin, the data will feed into AI systems that assess conditions linked to pregnancy such as hypertension, gestational diabetes and perinatal depression. The idea is to provide insights that can influence personalised care during and after pregnancy.

The project has been made possible through a record donation from Inkfish, a philanthropic research organisation. Inkfish’s support is funding clinical studies and AI tools that will help identify digital markers of health outcomes for mothers, partners, and babies.

 

What Health Benefits Are Being Studied?

 

The EMBRACE project is also looking closely at exercise. King’s College professor Josip Car told the summit that most women do not exercise enough during pregnancy. The research will monitor both women and their partners, and an “exercise as medicine” programme will form part of the data collection. Researchers hope this can reduce gestational diabetes cases by 40% and pregnancy hypertension by 40%.

This programme is being run in the UK, Canada, China, Ghana, Peru and Spain. The scope is global, but the outcomes could shape care in local health systems. Garmin devices have been used in many areas before in areas such as monitoring Parkinson’s patients and even astronauts. The EMBRACE project now applies this technology to one of the most delicate areas of health: maternal and child wellbeing.

Garmin Health’s senior director Jörn Watzke explained, “King’s College London – a preeminent university in life sciences and medicine – is at the forefront of integrating wearable technology into its world-class research studies, and the Garmin Health team is proud to have a strategic collaboration with King’s College London and be a part of the EMBRACE program of research and its other initiatives advancing the role of smartwatches in health monitoring. This is an important milestone for Garmin, underscoring our rigorous standards for data quality, integration and privacy.”

At the summit, Garmin also launched new devices such as the Venu 4 and Bounce 2, pointing to a growing consumer demand for data-driven health monitoring.

 

 

How Does This Link To Other University Studies On Wearables?

 

The use of wearables in university research also goes beyond pregnancy studies… In 2022, the University of Cambridge and the University of Leicester published findings in the European Heart Journal based on data from 88,412 participants in the UK Biobank. They used wrist-worn trackers to measure activity levels over a week.

The results showed that while being active in general lowers cardiovascular risk, more vigorous exercise definitely makes a bigger difference. Cardiovascular disease rates were 14% lower when 20% of physical activity was at a moderate or vigorous level rather than 10%. When the proportion of higher intensity activity went up by 40%, the disease rate went down by 40%.

Professor Tom Yates of the University of Leicester said that people should be encouraged to build more moderately intense activity into their daily routines. This can be as small as changing a 14 minute stroll into a brisk 7 minute walk. Wearables allowed the researchers to make these conclusions because they captured accurate data that traditional surveys often miss.

 

What Does This Mean For Wearables Research?

 

The use of wearable devices together with AI is changing the way universities gather health information. Projects like EMBRACE are pushing studies to include tens of thousands of people across continents, while past work such as the UK Biobank study has shown how detailed activity records can link to long-term disease outcomes.

Philanthropic donations like the one from Inkfish show that funders see potential in this technology for improving maternal and child health. Meanwhile, partnerships between universities and companies like Garmin are creating datasets that could guide clinical care in new ways.

Josip Car, King’s College London Professor of Population and Digital Health Sciences said, “King’s is committed to utilising new and evolving technologies – like AI and wearables – to not only further academic research, but also provide critical insights needed to address policy and healthcare challenges around the world. In the case of the EMBRACE program of research, this means developing data-backed solutions for care during and after pregnancy. We are excited to be collaborating with Garmin on this important research to improve health outcomes for mothers and babies.”

Researchers now have access to all this biometric data in real time instead of just self-reported survey answers. This makes it possible to track exercise, sleep and recovery in ways that were not realistic before.