Meet the experts guiding Google’s efforts in consumer health.

The Google Consumer Health Advisory Panel is a team of external experts who will provide clinical and scientific guidance to support our ongoing commitment to building helpful and reliable health technology.

Google has a long track record as a trusted source in helping users understand and manage their health and fitness. To be this trusted source we have leaned on a team of internal and external experts across many disciplines and invested heavily in rigorous development and scientific validation of our health technologies. 

We are doubling down on this approach by creating a formal panel of external advisors to advise on new advancements like generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) that offer exciting possibilities for personalized health insights, and require careful consideration to be developed responsibly and effectively. This panel will advise Google as we continue to translate these advancements into highly credible health products, features, and experiences that can help improve your daily life.

We are honored to partner with a group of distinguished professionals who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience, spanning across medicine, fitness/activity, artificial intelligence, and much more, to our Consumer Health Advisory Panel. Their input will be instrumental in shaping the future of health and wellness at Google.

• Susannah Fox, former Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is a highly regarded researcher and advocate with extensive knowledge in consumer healthcare technology and data interoperability.

• Jan Oldenburg, FHIMSS, is the principal in Participatory Health Consulting and a nationally recognized thought leader on consumer health information strategy and personal health engagement. Ms. Oldenburg has spent more than 20 years driving digital transformation at organizations including Aetna, Kaiser Permanente and HealthPartners. She has published several books on digital health.

• Rhonda Patrick, PhD, is a biomedical scientist and founder of FoundMyFitness, reaching millions globally. She translates complex science into evidence-based, actionable health strategies through her podcast, website, and YouTube channel with a focus on metabolic health, brain aging, and improved health span. Her research explores genetics, nutrition, sleep, and hormetic stressors. Dr. Patrick is also an associate scientist and board member at the Fatty Acid Research Institute.

• Jessilyn Dunn, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Biostatistics & Bioinformatics at Duke University. She directs the BIG IDEAs Lab, which is focused on digital health innovation, wearable sensors, and the development and validation of AI-driven digital biomarkers. Dr. Dunn is the Principal Investigator of numerous NIH- and NSF-funded projects and a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and the IEEE EMBS Early Career Achievement Award for her leadership and innovation across engineering and medicine.

• Steven Lin, MD, is a practicing family physician, Founding Director of the Stanford Healthcare AI Applied Research Team, and Chief of General Primary Care at Stanford. He’s a physician executive with deep experience in digital health and the application of health AI in clinical settings. 

• Karandeep Singh, MD, MMSc is the Chief Health AI Officer for UC San Diego Health, Jacobs Chancellor’s Endowed Chair and Associate Professor of Medicine in Biomedical Informatics at  UC San Diego. In these roles, Dr. Singh oversees AI strategy and governance for the health system and leads AI initiatives within the Jacobs Center for Health Innovation. 

• Steve Steinhubl, MD, is Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University and a career-long clinician-scientist. Prior to Purdue, Steve was founding Director of Digital Medicine at Scripps Research’s Translational Institute. He remains clinically active as a cardiologist. His research centers on the implementation science behind the use of digital health technologies in health research and health care, development of individualized digital biomarkers made possible by wearable sensors, AI-based insights, and AI-augmented precision communications. 

• Gary Bennett, PhD, is Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience, Global Health, Medicine, and Nursing and Dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke University. He is Founding Director of the Duke Digital Health Science Center, former president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and a global leader in designing, testing, and disseminating digital therapeutics for health behavior change.

• Abby King, PhD, is the David and Susan Heckerman Endowed Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also Founder and Faculty Director of Stanford’s Health Enhancing Action Research & Technology Solutions (HEARTS) Lab and a past president of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. Her research has focused on the development and evaluation of technology-enabled health behavior change interventions to reduce chronic disease and its key behavioral risk factors.

• Ryan Rhodes, PhD, is Professor of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education and Director of the Behavioural Medicine Laboratory at the University of Victoria. His research focuses on the psychology of health behavior change, particularly relating to physical activity and habit and identity formation.

• Daniel Buysse, MD, is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine and Clinical and Translational Science and the UPMC Endowed Chair in Sleep Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. His research focuses on measurement of sleep and circadian rhythms, including patient-reported outcomes (PROs), insomnia, multidimensional sleep health, and behavioral interventions for sleep problems. Dr. Buysse is President of the Sleep Research Society and Past President of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. 

• Michael Grandner, PhD, is Director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the University of Arizona, and Director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic at the Banner-University Medical Center in Tucson. As a licensed clinical psychologist, he specializes in developing behavioral interventions for sleep disorders and insufficient sleep.

The Consumer Health Advisory Panel’s strength lies in the breadth and depth of its members’ expertise, which spans domains relevant to consumer health technology: physicians across multiple specialties, specialists in health AI and digital health interventions, experts in wearable sensors and data analysis, leaders in health behavior change, and advocates for consumer health. 

This collective wealth of knowledge promises a well-rounded approach. Whether it’s evaluating the potential of AI to provide early warnings for preexisting health conditions, or refining how insights are presented to motivate positive behavior changes, the panel’s critical guidance will help ensure that Fitbit’s features are grounded in scientific evidence and can offer meaningful improvement in our users’ health.

The panel’s work will complement Google’s ongoing commitment to research and responsible innovation. For example, Google already collaborates with researchers at institutions like Vanderbilt University, the University of Oregon, and the University of Cambridge on ambitious academic research projects to combine data from wearables with traditional health information, creating and leveraging rich datasets for health trend analysis. This kind of academic research, especially when combined with Google’s continued advances in AI, has the potential to unlock novel insights.

Specifically, Google has developed and published  research on the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyze and aid with the interpretation of medical information and patient interactions in broad health domains, demonstrating the feasibility of matching or exceeding human expert knowledge.^1,2

We also work closely with regulatory agencies across the world to ensure our products are reliable and safe for their intended use – including potentially life-saving features like Loss of Pulse Detection, which recently launched on the Pixel Watch 3. 

And we  continue to be a pioneer in large-scale population health studies – the Fitbit Heart Study³ enrolled over 450,000 participants alone, and was key in helping drive the adoption of screening for atrial fibrillation in consumer wearables. In a recent example, the Fitbit Pregnancy Study⁴ was the largest of its kind in assessing physiological changes before, during, and after pregnancy on a representative population of over 10,000 women.

The Google Consumer Health Advisory Panel reinforces our commitment to making sure the health tools you use every day are built on a foundation of scientific rigor, with expert input. Bringing in diverse outside expertise strengthens our ability to provide trustworthy, innovative, and responsible health features designed to support your journey of wellbeing.