Why Facebook Has a Health Team Working On COVID Issues (Including Vaccines)

With more than 2.6 billion daily users, it's no secret that Facebook (META 0.55%) reaches a lot of people around the world across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Even before the pandemic, there's been a surge in demand for health information online. Building on its COVID-19 information center, the tech stock recently announced a big push to provide authoritative information about coronavirus vaccines. This new campaign will connect users with localized vaccination information, remove more vaccine misinformation from its platforms, and donate $120 million in ad credits to health agencies around the world. 

Corinne Cardina, Fool.com's healthcare and cannabis bureau chief, got the chance to speak with Facebook's Head of Health KX Jin on Feb. 10 about Facebook's plan to increase trust and confidence in COVID-19 vaccines. Here's what he said about his job leading health efforts at the social media giant.

Corinne Cardina: Hi, everybody. I am Corinne Cardina, I'm the Bureau Chief of Healthcare and Cannabis on Fool.com. I'm so thrilled to welcome KX Jin who is Head of Health at Facebook. KX and I are going to talk about some big news regarding Facebook's efforts to help with COVID-19 recovery and vaccination. Hi there, KX, and welcome to Fool Live. How are you today?

KX Jin: Doing well. Thank you for having me.

Cardina: Excellent. I would love to start by sharing your background with our audience. You've had a long career at Facebook, starting out as a software engineer and working as a product lead on many different projects across the company. I imagine you know Facebook inside out, and of course, now you are head of health. Could you tell me briefly about how your different experiences at Facebook prepared you for this role and are there people with health or medical expertise on your team?

Jin: I've been at Facebook a little over 14 years now, working across roles and teams. I started as an engineer two weeks before we launched News Feed, and then I spent a long time in various engineering and products roles. About two years ago after seeing how people were using Facebook tools and products to connect around health and for health-related support, we decided to create a dedicated team to support this area more deliberately as part of our social impact work. Health really affects everyone. Adjusting people's health needs requires a team to incorporate a broad set of perspectives. The individual themselves, but also friends and family, caregivers, clinicians, and other healthcare experts. Our team has people with all of these perspectives on it. We also work very closely in partnership with outside health experts and organization. In my time at Facebook, I've had the privilege to go to a lot of these teams in different areas over the last decade. I'm tremendously grateful now to have the opportunity to do that in health.