Google Doubles Its Knowledge Graph Health Info, Lets You Download As PDF

Earlier this year, Google boosted the amount of health information it provides to users via the Knowledge Graph. When you ask about a common health condition, you can get instant medical facts related...
Google Doubles Its Knowledge Graph Health Info, Lets You Download As PDF
Written by Chris Crum
  • Earlier this year, Google boosted the amount of health information it provides to users via the Knowledge Graph. When you ask about a common health condition, you can get instant medical facts related to it right form the results page. It shows symptoms, treatments, details about how common it is, whether it’s critical or contagious, what ages it affects, etc.

    On Thursday, Google announced some more improvements including hundreds more conditions. It will soon include over 900, which is twice as many as what it started with.

    Google is also improving the visual design and adding more specific triggering to make it quicker and easier to find the relevant info. They’re also adding a “download PDF” link to make it easy to print the info.

    “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,” says product manager Prem Ramaswami. “We think it’s important for people to have facts on these diseases, such as Dengue Fever (already included), Chikungunya, and Leishmaniases (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,” Ramaswami adds. “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.”

    Google is recommending that people use the PDF feature to print the information out and take it to their doctor. In fact, the company says that this feature has been heavily requested by doctors themselves.

    Image via Google

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