How Inclusion is Driving Innovation at Google Health

When developing healthcare products, services, and research studies, it’s not always about who’s at the table, but rather, who isn’t.

After a few years of listening and learning as an audience participant, I was happy to be back on stage at SXSW last month, talking about a topic that is near and dear to my heart: diversity in clinical research.?

I joined a panel titled “Clinical Trials: Innovating for Inclusion,” which focused on the role that companies can play in increasing marginalized populations’ access to clinical trials. I was joined by an impressive group of women, including Sommer Bazuro, PhD , Erica Taylor, Ph.D. and Ricki Fairley , all who work at the intersection of tech, inclusion, and clinical trial representation.?

Inclusion is a topic that I care deeply about. Prior to joining Google, I was a physician and a researcher, experiences that gave me first-hand exposure to the impact of health disparities. Today, I’m helping our teams to ensure that all of our health-related initiatives are diverse, fair, accessible and above all, inclusive. Here are a few ways how.

Increasing representation in health research

One of the most important ways to improve health outcomes for historically marginalized populations is through more inclusive health research.

Today, less than 10% of the U.S. population participates in clinical trials, a gap that has dire implications for both our broader population and individual patients. Representation gaps between trial participants and the overall population mean that researchers can’t properly generalize their research findings. Meanwhile, patients miss out on potential life-saving treatments.

Google believes that technology can play a key role in advancing representative health research. In 2020, we released our Google Health Studies app, which allows anyone with an Android phone to contribute to important health research by answering survey questions and contributing relevant data.?

But we recognize that not only do we need new research modalities, we also need to rethink what we ask people, who we include in this research and how we work together to use the findings. That’s why last May we launched a study focused on how smartphone use impacts wellbeing – an area in which existing studies are limited, and have typically involved small or under-representative samples.

Digital tools like this also remove geographical barriers to research participation, allowing those with disabilities or who live long distances from research centers to contribute.

Giving people high-quality, accurate health information

But regardless of where they live, when most people have a health question, they start with a quick search online. At Google, we see hundreds of millions of health queries every single day, making it critical that our search results and features are accurate, helpful and inclusive. This isn’t a role we take lightly. Access to high-quality health information is a critical determinant of health – and good health decisions start with good information.

We have the chance to build products that help people to find the information they need, when they need it. For example, to help U.S. users avoid losing their Medicaid coverage, we recently announced features that will make Medicaid re-enrollment information easier to find on Search .

In addition, our teams are also building a feature that will tell users when a healthcare provider offers free or low-cost care. All this work is critical to giving people access to the information they need to make the best health choices for themselves and their families.

Accelerating innovation through third-party solutions??

When we think about “innovating for inclusion,” part of our job at Google is to create fertile ground on which we can move the industry forward and allow third-party solutions to grow.

Our efforts come in many forms. At the Check Up last month, our Health AI team announced Open Health Stack (OHS), a set of open-source building blocks to help developers, especially those who lack the resources to build with modern data standards, create next-generation healthcare apps. We’ve already begun seeing solutions coming out of this offering, such as “Mama’s Hub”, a maternal health app by IntelliSoft to support community health volunteers and pregnant women in rural communities in Kenya.

And we’re also helping researchers. In January, we expanded our Health Equity Research Initiative by giving more than a dozen research teams access to resources and technologies to advance their work with members of LGBTQ+, Black, Latino and Alaskan Native communities as well as marginalized birthing parents and groups experiencing intimate partner violence.

Inclusive by design

Make no mistake: health equity is a big, complex problem that requires big, ambitious solutions.

But it’s these sorts of problems that companies like Google are uniquely capable of addressing, in partnership with other organizations and leaders across the health industry. We’re continuing to do the hard work, and together, we believe we can improve the health outcomes of individuals and communities of all kinds, around the world.