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hopes to better understand the reality of cardiac toxicity and identify potential opportunities for intervention. Every Bay Area resident remembers the day the sky turned orange. It happened September 9, 2020. Dr. So-Min Cheong, an associate professor in the Public Service & Administration Department at the Bush School, Texas A&M University, was in Palo Alto, California. “I still have photos of that day on my iPhone,” said Dr. Cheong. California experienced a series of devastating wildfires in 2020 and 2021. Dr. Cheong, who researches the social and health consequences of environmental disasters and climate change, saw an opportunity to study the personal impact of wildfire smoke on cardiac health in firefighters. “General health recommendations or off-the-shelf interventions weren’t good enough for me,” Dr. Cheong explains. “People are unique. Each individual is different when it concerns their health, and I wanted to learn more.” Through her connections in the research community, Dr. Cheong learned that Apple Watch could help capture the kind of health data she needed. “A colleague of mine at Stanford had shared their experience using Apple Watch, and it’s known for its heart rate accuracy,” she adds. “I had always wanted to be able to do more noninvasive, sensor-based analysis on individuals to get at more precise health measurements.” Next month, Dr. Cheong at Texas A&M University and Drs. Brian Kim and Marco Perez at Stanford Medicine will begin equipping firefighters with Apple Watch to study the impact of wildfire smoke on heart health. Wildfire season begins in spring in Texas and summer in California, and up to 200 firefighters in these locations will join the study. From Apple Watch, the study plans to monitor heart rate and rhythm, sleep, blood oxygen, activity data, and more. Firefighters will also wear an air quality monitor and complete surveys related to sleep, activity, and wildfire smoke-related symptoms. “Firefighters are bound to benefit from the study,” Dr. Cheong shares. “We know wildfire smoke directly affects their health and with a study like this, they’ll be able to see their results in real time.” But she doesn’t want to generalize what the study’s potential findings are at this point, particularly when the core focus of the research is looking at the kind of individualized and precision health data that Apple Watch can provide. “Studies like this one haven’t been done before, so it’s not a matter of proving or disproving a hypothesis,” said Dr. Cheong. “It’s more exploratory and the outcomes will help us understand the accuracy of an analysis like this to generate tailored interventions. I also think a study of this nature could help us understand high risk groups better.”