Google Health, a division of Alphabet, announced a new health-focused Android app called Google Health Studies. The new app from Google is designed to make health research more accessible, provide better representation, and help researchers advance health.
The new Google Health Studies app allows anyone with an Android phone to participate in health studies by answering survey questions and contributing relevant data.
When it comes to data privacy and security around using this app, Google has doubled down its efforts to make sure that all user data is encrypted and protected appropriately.
According to the Google Health Team,
“In building the app we focused on three principles: keeping information safe, treating it responsibly, and putting participants in control. When participants use the Google Health Studies app, their data is protected with Google’s advanced security. All information is encrypted and research data is stored securely.”
Much like Apple’s ResearchKit, The Google Health Studies app provides a platform for researchers to reach a large and diverse population so they can better understand human health while providing the public with greater opportunities to contribute to medical research.
Google Health team has partnered with researchers from Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital and is launching the Respiratory Health Study.
This Respiratory Health Study will be open to adults in the U.S. It will identify how respiratory illnesses evolve in communities and differ across risk factors such as age and activities such as travel.
This announcement from Google today comes when all three major tech players are investing heavily in health tech.
Earlier this year, Apple had launched a study with the University of California, Irvine, to study Asthma.
Amazon just released a new HIPA compliant platform called HealthLake that allows for storing and analyzing health care data.
Learn more about the new Google Health Studies app by checking out Google’s guidance around what you can do with this new app and how you can sign up and contribute to new Health studies.
