Facebook introduced a new tool this week that provides the platform’s users with personalized healthcare recommendations, CNN reports.
The tool, named Preventive Health, focuses on just that, specifically targeting cardiovascular disease, cancer and seasonal illnesses like the flu. It leverages information from the American Cancer Society, American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—all Facebook’s partners in this venture—and combines that data with a user’s age and sex to provide them with personalized medical advice.
According to CNN, Preventive Health is able to make recommendations ranging from when to get a cholesterol test to where to get a flu shot. Once the tool has curated a personalized list of recommendations, users can choose to learn more about them, mark them as completed or set reminders about them.
“We are looking at the number-one and number-two killers in America, which are heart disease and cancer, and we’re also looking at seasonal illness, particularly flu in this case,” Freddy Abnousi, a cardiologist and head of healthcare research at Facebook, told CNN. “The majority problem that we’re trying to solve is making sure that people have this information in their hand in a way that’s consumer friendly.”
The Preventive Health tool can be accessed by searching for it on Facebook.
Read the full story from CNN below:
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.