Project Baseline is an ambitious health study created by Google and its parent company, Alphabet. Find out everything you need to know about Project Baseline today.
What Is Project Baseline?
Project Baseline first made headlines two years ago, when Google announced it was launching an ambitious health project called the Baseline Study. The project’s goal was to create a platform that could predict medical conditions before they presented any symptoms. Google accepted 200 participants as part of that program.
Over the past two years, Google has continued working on the platform. Today, it’s part of Verily, which is a unit of Google’s parent company Alphabet. Previously, it was part of the Google X experiments division.
Project Baseline has been in headlines this past week after Verily announced plans to launch a four year study with 10,000 participants. That study’s goal? To understand exactly how people get sick.
Verily has partnered with Duke University and Stanford Medicine for their research. They want to observe healthy people of all ages and ethnicities, monitoring their health data in order to build prediction models for specific illnesses and diseases.
Today, Google is accepting applicants through its website. If you want to share your health data and contribute to the next generation of health research over the next four years, then you can sign up today.
How Will Project Baseline Work?
The Project Baseline study will collect data through periodic surveys. Participants will take part in a blood test on an annual basis, where researchers will also collect saliva and tear samples along with genetic data.
Throughout the course of the study, participants will wear smart devices to track their heart rate and activity.
Participants will wear a wearable device called the “Study Watch”. Interestingly, that device shows no data to the patient – it sends all data directly to Verily. Patients just see an ordinary wristwatch displaying the time. Two other smart devices include the Verily Study Hub and what appears to be a smart weight scale – although further details of those items is not available at this time.
Other data will also be collected through the study – including environmental data – to gain insight into how environmental factors affect a patient’s health. The study is scheduled to conclude after four years. However, Verily may choose to keep patients beyond the initial four years in order to gain further insights into health data, disease recognition, and symptoms.
The long term goal of the project is to help physicians treat diseases before they present symptoms – or immediately after the first symptoms kick in. This could lead to better early prevention.
The project will also create a large database of anonymous data that future researchers and pharmaceutical companies can access.
This isn’t the first time Alphabet has conducted a study. The company launched a study with 200 participants in 2014. Now, they’re seeking 10,000 participants for their latest study.
Joining Project Baseline
Verily is currently seeking volunteers in North Carolina and the San Francisco Bay Area who are willing to share their (anonymous) health data as part of the study. They’re accepting a total of 10,000 volunteers.
The study is led by Verily, Duke University School of Medicine, Stanford Medicine, and Google. Participants will be chosen across a broad range of ages, backgrounds, and medical histories.
Applications are open to anyone 18 years of age or older in the United States.
Project Baseline Advantages
Why should you volunteer to divulge sensitive health data to the world’s largest advertising company? Google is encouraging you to do it “on behalf of humanity”. They claim their platform will make the world a better, more informed place for generations to come.
It will provide future physicians and pharmaceutical companies with valuable data they can use to prevent diseases, develop medications, and push humanity forward. Other Project Baseline advantages advertised by Verily include:
- Visit in-person for health tests up to four times per year
- Test new technologies and wearable devices daily
- Complete surveys and diaries about your health and lifestyle
- You receive “compensation for your time and perks for your involvement” (specific info isn’t available thus far)
- Other advantages include exclusive access to the Baseline community and events, along with regular updates on new discoveries
- Plus, you can share test results and health data with your own doctor
Verily is advertising the project as a way to contribute to the future of humanity. However, some people are already uncomfortable about giving their sensitive health data to one of the world’s largest corporations.
As The Verge explained in their write up, “Project Baseline is meant to benefit Verily, too”.
Sign Up For Project Baseline
You can sign up for Project Baseline at the official website. You start by entering your zip code, then enter basic information about yourself before submitting it to Verily. Project Baseline is an ambitious endeavor that could have an enormous impact on human health for generations to come.
Essentially, Verily is trying to consolidate information gathered through our smart devices, and then organize that information into something that’s usable. We’ll keep you posted on what they discover over the next four years.
