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Google have launched Google Health Studies, a health research app on December 9, 2020 for android phones, which would allow android users to participate in medical studies. Respiratory illnesses like the flu and COVID-19 are the focus of its first study.

According to Google, after submitting data about themselves and answering a questionnaire, the app allows its users to sign up and participate in medical research.  In addition, the app will allow users access to any research findings once they are published. 

The people participating will have to report any respiratory symptoms, the precautions they’re taking to prevent disease, and whether they’ve been tested for COVID-19 or the flu besides collecting demographic data, like age, gender, and race as well. With the help of this app, researchers will be able to examine trends to understand the link between the trips made by the users outside the home and the spread of COVID-19.

The app would use a technique called federated learning which will batch aggregated trends from multiple devices for sending to the researchers rather than collecting information from each participant invidually.

Most of the clinical trials are either delayed or fail entirely as a result of inadequate recruitment. Now, with the advent of Smartphone based recruitment strategies that lower the barrier to entry with straightforward enrollment, research organizations could finally pump up their numbers. Approach applied by the Google is transparent with data, shows users the impact of their participation and employs well established digital engagement practices such as push notifications, is likely to ensure that more participants are retained throughout the course of the study.

Apart from this, the Google health team addressed the issue of participant diversity. This is an area that the team admitted to be a point of criticism for its previous digital data collection projects in the past, as well as the subject of academic criticism.

To overcome this, the Google Health team said it would include standardized user experience features like larger text and talk back, which would be highly beneficial for older or less tech-savvy participants. In order to increase participation of minorities or other groups, the app has been equipped with data visibility features  showing users whether or not their demographic is currently over represented or in high demand for each study.

When it comes to analyzing this data, the team officials noted that with the number of potential participants and the variety of demographic data that will be collected for each, researchers will have the able to quickly understand whether or not their subject associate is representative of a population.

Although, users privacy is protected by the means of aggregated data, but it also restricts researchers’ ability to take a detailed look at information.

Besides, other advantage to Google Health Studies is that the android phone users have a lower median income than iPhone users.

The emergences of COVID-19 alongside other seasonal respiratory pathogens have created the need to develop more effective treatments.

Google have partnered with Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital for its first study on respiratory illnesses.

The study which is open to adults in the U.S. will identify how these illnesses evolve in communities and differ across risk factors such as age and activities like travel.

Besides the mobile markets big players, others are trying to deliver new clinical data streams via smart devices and wearable. One major name in this arena is Evidation health which has already worked with names like Johnson & Johnson, BARDA, the Gates Foundation, Eli Lilly and Apple to conduct  health research with connected devices, and recently closed a series d funding round. Also, a few startups like Deep 6 AI, Clinical trial connect, subject well and patient wing.