[View the story "Crowdsourcing Sickness" on Storify ]Crowdsourcing Sickness Social media users develop online tools in an effort to combat the spread of various illnesses across the globe. This comes as a resilient strain of E. coli ravages many parts of Europe. Storified by The Stream · Wed, Oct 26 2011 21:59:42
The current outbreak has hit at least 14 countries, including the United States, though all fatalities have been directly linked to Germany. In that country, 1,601 patients have been diagnosed as being infected, with a further 630 said to be suffering from haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS), a life-threatening condition involving kidney malfunction, the Robert Koch Institute said.english.aljazeera.net
On Tuesday, Taggesspiege, a German newspaper reported that the E.coli strain involved in the outbreak, known as EAEC, is only found in humans, rather than animals. Dr Lo Wing Lok, an infectious disease specialist in Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera that while the infection can spread relatively easily due to the free travel of goods and people around the world, the measures one can take to protect oneself are also quite simple.english.aljazeera.net
One online tool,
HealthMap , has aggregated the e.coli reports and provided a visualisation representing the disease's spread.
HealthMap brings together disparate data sources, including online news aggregators, eyewitness reports, expert-curated discussions and validated official reports, to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health.healthmap.org
The freely available Web site 'healthmap.org' and mobile app 'Outbreaks Near Me' deliver real-time intelligence on a broad range of emerging infectious diseases for a diverse audience including libraries, local health departments, governments, and international travelers.healthmap.org
HealthMap - Global health, local informationajestream
Google also provides a similar tool for tracking health disparities. The internet giant launched Google Flu Trends in 2008 after linking search terms with disease prevalence.
It all started with the flu. In 2008, we found that the activity of certain search terms are good indicators of actual flu activity. Based on this finding, we launched Google Flu Trends to provide timely estimates of flu activity in 28 countries. Since then, we’ve seen a number of other researchers—including our very own—use search activity data to estimate other real world activities.blog.google.org
Google Flu Trends - Argentinaajestream
Now the company plans to use its Google Correlate technology to map dengue fever.
We’ve heard from many researchers who want to mine this data for new discoveries about economics and public health—much like we designed Google Flu Trends to give an early warning about flu outbreaks. We hope they’re able to make useful discoveries with Google Correlate.googleblog.blogspot.com
While building Google Correlate, we used it to create an early warning system for another important disease. Google Dengue Trends in Bolivia, Brazil, India, Indonesia and Singapore provides an additional surveillance tool for a disease that affects about 100 million people each year.googleblog.blogspot.com
Small startups are also trying to get involved in the disease-mapping movement. Sickweather plans to utilise social media to share information about the spread of diseases between different communities.
Sickweather wants to build a social network around this sort of information, but currently the startup is utilizing publicly available social data. By mining Facebook and Twitter for certain keywords, the company can ascertain where there are disease outbreaks.readwriteweb.com
Sickweather - Online Social Health Network - Sickness Forecasting & Mappingajestream
Just as Doppler radar scans the skies for indicators of bad weather, Sickweather scans social networks for indicators of illness, allowing you to check for the chance of sickness as easily as you check for the chance of rain.sickweather.com
Sickweather's robust algorithm filters and qualifies this data from several public sources (including its own online community) and cross references them with location tags to produce real time "weather maps" of reported symptoms. This information is then used to forecast the movement of everything from stomach bugs to chronic illness and other sickness, including depression.sickweather.com
Registered Sickweather users will be able to harness this information with a bevy of fun, informative and interactive tools, including monitoring their own health and the health of their friends and family.sickweather.com
The company plans to build out a number of apps for Facebook and Twitter as well as for mobile devices. Through these the company plans to offer different levels of access to data, from just being able to view generalized maps of flu outbreaks, for example, to more details about specifics and, as is the case with most social networks, to be able to share these with only certain friends and followers.readwriteweb.com
Will these internet tools be effective in tracking disease? Can insurance companies capitalise on this social media initiative? Share your thought with The Stream on Facebook and Twitter .
