The university says it designed the study so that it could conduct it entirely remotely. Privacy was another major consideration. UCLA and Apple say they plan to anonymize any data they collect during the study.   

The hope is that the study will lead to a breakthrough that will give healthcare workers a better way to spot the symptoms of depression and prevent potential depressive episodes. As the university notes, how the medical field goes about detecting depression hasn’t changed significantly for more than a century. Much as they’ve done in the past, doctors currently observe patients and ask them how they feel. 

“Current approaches to treating depression rely almost entirely on the subjective recollections of depression sufferers. This is an important step for obtaining objective and precise measurements that guide both diagnosis and treatment,” said Dr. Nelson Freimer, director of the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge.

Health has been an area of focus for Apple for the last couple of years, so it’s not a surprise to see an initiative like this from the company. In 2014, the company announced HealthKit, a service that tracks, records and analyzes your fitness level, as part of iOS 8. More recently, the company detailed how the latest features that are coming to watchOS 7, one of which is sleep tracking.