Today, Healia announced the launch of Healia Communities, a free online health community that enables people to get personal support for their health decisions from peers and experienced health professionals.

“We believe that Healia Communities will guide people to both the information and support they need to make important health decisions,” says Eng, Healia president and founder. “The launch of Healia Communities is an important milestone toward our goal of helping to improve people’s health and potentially save lives.”

Through Healia Communities, members can search for their peers by health concern, age, heritage, geographic location, whether they are a parent, caregiver, healthcare professional and more. Members can make connections and create their own personal support network with others who share similar health interests and concerns. Healia Communities launches with more than 200 communities including allergy, Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart diseases and weight management.

In addition to support from fellow community members, people can obtain answers to health questions from an experienced panel of health professionals in a timely manner – typically within 48 hours. Healia Communities’ health experts are physicians, nurses, and other health professionals from a variety of disciplines and specialty areas. From the Communities site, users will also be able to rate community answers and the quality of the information provided.

Healia is expanding the notion of consumer health search by offering both an innovative search engine and an online health community. Through personalized search tools, information guides, health blogs and quiz games, and now an online health community with access to health experts, Healia guides people to the support and understanding they need to make better health decisions.