Future Now
The IFTF Blog
A new iPhone app provides opportunities for grassroots, participatory epidemiology
Outbreaks Near Me enables users to track and report outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as H1N1 (swine flu), on the ground in real time. This new iPhone app is from HealthMap, a website that mines the Internet for disparate data sources of varying reliability—from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization)—to track and map infectious disease outbreaks.
HealthMap was founded in 2006 by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab. They have published a number of journal articles about their work, including "Digital Disease Detection — Harnessing the Web for Public Health Surveillance" in the New England Journal of Medicine; you can access a list here, along with links to the extensive media coverage the site has received.
Outbreaks Near Me allows users to pinpoint outbreaks that have been reported in their vicinity, and to search for additional outbreak information by location or disease. The app's functionality includes the ability to set alerts that will notify a user on their device or by e-mail when new outbreaks are reported in their proximity, or if a user enters a new area of activity.
I probably would have blogged about Outbreaks Near Me even if it was only a cool new health information iPhone app. But what makes it really interesting to me is that it allows people to become more proactive about public health. The phrase "grassroots, participatory epidemiology" in my headline comes from HealthMap co-founder Clark Freifeld, who explained in a press release that he and his fellow researchers hope that the app will
empower citizens in the cause of public health, not only by providing ready access to real-time information, but also by encouraging them to contribute their own knowledge, expertise, and observations. In enabling participation in surveillance, we also expect to increase global coverage and identify outbreaks earlier.
Outbreaks Near Me features an option for users anywhere in the world to submit an outbreak report to the HealthMap system, and to include photos—of situations and scenarios of, and/or leading to, disease—taken with their iPhone. These efforts at public health surveillance are then reviewed and may be posted as alerts on a worldwide map.