IBM has announced the launch of the first app to run on its Watson Health Cloud.

Created in association with the American Sleep Apnea Association (ASAA) the “SleepHealth” app, available for the iPhone and Apple Watch, identifies connections between sleep habits and health outcomes as part of a study by the same name that is attempting to find solutions to common sleep problems.

SleepHealth utilizes the open source ResearchKit framework designed by Apple to enable participants to easily complete tasks and submit surveys right from the app itself, and is the first ResearchKit study to run on the Watson Health Cloud.

“Sleep is one of the most important factors impacting health, safety and quality of life [and] yet 1 in 4 Americans experience sleep problems, which severely impact daily functioning, health and longevity,” a statement announcing the new app notes. “Chronic insomnia affects more than 10 percent of Americans, and 25 million suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

The SleepHealth study plans to explore the connections between sleep quality and daytime activities, alertness, productivity, general health and medical condition, with app users having the opportunity to help shape the study by contributing ideas for research topics, survey questions, engagement activities and messaging.

The SleepHealth app itself taps into Apple Watch’s heart rate monitor to detect when a subject falls asleep before gathering movement data with the onboard accelerometer and gyroscope.

Once the data is gathered, researchers will access it via the Watson Health Cloud to conduct extensive analysis to uncover patterns and connections in the data.

“We’ve made life the laboratory for this study by crowd-sourcing data and input to achieve an unprecedented understanding of sleep in a non-invasive manner,” said Carl Stepnowsky, PhD, the principal investigator for the study explained. “This study also marks the Association’s commitment to patient-led research and data-driven discovery. With ResearchKit and Watson Health Cloud, this new app will help us build the world’s largest longitudinal study to collect data on both healthy and unhealthy sleepers that can be published as an open study and shared with other researchers.”

Those interested in joining the study can download the app from the Apple App Store via this link. Study participants must be at least 18 years of age, live in the United States, and understand English.

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