Google announces new Health Equity Research Initiative to mitigate health disparities

Google is committed to helping everyone, everywhere be healthier. As part of the global health equity community, we have an opportunity to ensure our products, services, and research help everyone live healthier lives. From connecting people to the care they need to advancing new tools to analyze health data, we aim to accelerate health equity innovation by leveraging our technological capabilities and resources. In collaboration with new and longstanding leaders across many fields, we can help improve health outcomes for individuals and communities.

At the recent Health Equity Summit we announced the Google Health Equity Research Initiative, which is designed to help researchers advance health equity research and improve health outcomes for groups disproportionately impacted by health disparities and/or negative social and structural determinants of health. Select winners will be eligible to receive awards, which may include funding, Fitbit devices, Fitabase services, and up to $20,000 in Google Cloud credits to use for their research compute needs. By accessing wearable devices, researchers can better evaluate how physical activity, weight, heart health, nutrition, and sleep patterns impact people’s everyday lives.  Analyzing a variety of datasets, such as demographic and social determinants of health (SDOH), alongside Fitbit data has the potential to provide organizations and researchers with new insights regarding disparities that may exist across populations—such as obesity disparities that exist among children in low-income families, or increased risk of complications among Black women related to pregnancy and childbirth.

Researchers at academic institutions and nonprofit research institutions in the United States are invited to submit proposals for the Google Health Equity Research Initiative by October 12, 2022.

Expanding our support of research innovation

Google Cloud has a proud track record of supporting innovative research that expands access and addresses inequities.

• We have collaborated with the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Minority-Serving Institutions Research Expansion (CISE-MSI) to fund STEM researchers at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities through NSF’s CloudBank program.

• We have supported numerous researchers across a diverse set of institutions and disciplines with our Cloud credits program. These seed grants offer researchers access to Google Cloud compute resources like education and training and open-source tools for Scientific Computing.

• We recently launched Google Cloud Climate Innovation challenge, which along with the Health Equity Research Initiative will help to promote scientific innovation in critical research areas like Sustainability and Health Equity.  

To learn more about the Health Equity Research Initiative and apply, click here by October 12, 2022!  Before applying, please review the official rules for eligibility or listen to this webinar. To hear more about best practices and innovative efforts in health equity by Google, watch our 2022 Health Equity Summit.