Facebook poised to enter health-care sector with 'support communities'

Facebook already knows who your friends are and the kind of things that grab your attention. Soon, it could also know the state of your health.

Following fellow US technology companies Apple and Google, Facebook is plotting its first steps into the field of health care, according to industry sources.

The company is exploring online "support communities" that would connect Facebook users suffering from various ailments. A small team is also considering "preventative care" applications that would help people improve their lifestyles.

The sources said the social networking giant has met medical experts and entrepreneurs, and was setting up a research and development unit to test health apps. It was still in the idea-gathering stage, they said.

Health care has long been an interest for Facebook, but has been pushed aside by more pressing issues.

However, recently, Facebook executives have come to realise that health care might work as a tool to increase engagement with the site.

One catalyst was the unexpected success of its "organ-donor status initiative", introduced in 2012. The day that Facebook altered profile pages to allow members to specify their organ-donor status, 13,054 people registered to be donors online in the United States, a 21-fold increase over the daily average of 616 registrations, according to study published in the American Journal of Transplantation in June last year.