Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Asthma Alerts Through Social Networks
Arizona public health researchers are looking into updating asthma patients about environmental pollution through Twitter, Facebook and other social networking platforms. Under the proposal, Arizona residents could register with a publicly run program and receive updates about pollution and other environmental triggers for asthma that have been culled from environmental sensors.
State officials say they expect an alert system would cost several hundred thousand dollars to create and could be developed within two years. Though that sounds like an unnecessarily long amount of time to develop an alert system, it sounds like a creative way to deliver timely information to help people plan their days to avoid asthma attacks.