Wearables are too expensive for groups underrepresented in medical research

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Most people who use smartwatches and other wearable devices that can track health are white, well-educated, and wealthy. That's not because other groups aren't interested in using the devices to keep tabs on their fitness, heart rate, or other metrics, according to a new study. It's just that the cost of these devices is too high. That leaves lower-income groups and racial minority groups excluded from research studies that use wearable data.

The study was conducted by researchers at the All of Us Research Program, an initiative at the National Institutes of Health aiming to build a health database that's representative of the United States. The team is purposefully seeking to include groups historically underrepresented in medical...

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