Inside Search
The official Google Search blog
Now Google can help with updated health information
September 3, 2015
In early August, New York City saw an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease, a very rare and sometimes deadly form of pneumonia. As more outbreaks came to light,
Google searches for Legionnaires' disease
spiked over 1,000%. People wanted to know what this disease is, why it’s spreading, and how to prevent it. So we quickly updated our health conditions feature (first
launched last February
) to provide information on Legionnaires' right up front, from a simple search.
Indeed, health conditions continue to be among the most important things people ask Google about, and one of our most popular features. So today we’re announcing broader updates—over the next few weeks, you’ll notice:
Hundreds more health conditions (soon over 900 total, more than double the number we started with) where you’ll get quick at-a-glance info on symptoms, treatments, prevalence, and more
Visual design improvements and some more specific triggering so it’s quicker and easier to get the info you need (for example, you can now search for “pink eye symptoms” and you’ll get straight to the symptoms tab)
A ‘Download PDF’ link so you can easily print this information for a doctor’s visit—this has been a top request from doctors
We’re making sure to include
neglected tropical diseases
, a set of infections that affect over 1.5 billion people including 500 million children in poorer regions. We think it's important for people to have facts on these diseases, such as Dengue Fever (already included), Chikungunya, and Leishmaniasis (to be added soon). Today the feature is still only in U.S. English, but we plan to expand it to more languages and regions.
As before, we’ve consulted and worked closely with a team of doctors to curate and validate this information. We’ve gotten lots of positive, helpful feedback from our users and medical professionals, and we’ll keep working to bring useful health information to your fingertips, whether in
the Google app
or on desktop.
Posted by Prem Ramaswami, Product Manager
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