Facebook just launched a new “Preventive Health” tool that encourages users to undergo regular health checks and sets reminders based on their personal data.
This is part of an initiative to raise health concern awareness on diseases primarily including heart disease cancer, and the flu so symptoms can be treated in the early stages.
“Preventive measures have the potential to detect disease early when it’s most treatable and, in some cases, prevent it from developing,” said Freddy Abnousi MD, Head of Healthcare Research in a Facebook press release.
“Yet factors such as awareness, access and cost create barriers to testing for many people.”
In 2017, Facebook tried something similar by trying to raise awareness for blood donation and the results proved to be excellent. Since then more than 35 million people havee signed up to be blood donors around the world.
The in-app “Preventative Health” feature take account of personal information like age and gender then recommends what check-ups you should do and highlight where you can do them.
All recommendations are first checked by health organizations for accuracy before being posted and the initiative has been rolled out across the United States.
Although it is a great step toward raising health awareness, some users are concerned with privacy controls since the app makes note of private information. However, Facebook addressed these concerns saying that this information will not be shared to the public.
“Information you provide is securely stored and access is restricted to a group of people at Facebook who work on the product or maintain our systems,” said Erin Egan, VP and Chief Privacy Officer of Public Policy.
“We don’t share personal information about your activity in Preventive Health with third parties, such as health organizations or insurance companies, so it can’t be used for purposes like insurance eligibility.”
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Image credit: Shutterstock, Facebook.