Social media — Facebook, Google, Twitter, location-based services like Foursquare and more — are changing the way epidemiologists discover and track the spread of disease. Full Story »
Posted by Ellie Kesselman - via Google News (Media), genglob (t), Gian Antelles (t), Donica Mensing (t)
There was little new information here. However, the article was good because it was balanced, discussing pro's and con's from a variety of viewpoints. There were multiple expert sources directly quoted. Also, this was the first article where I finally found multiple links to published sources of information about the use of "crowd-sourcing" and social network information for epidemiology and tracking of infectious disease.
“The way that information moves is very similar to the way disease moves,” said Dr. David Fisman, an epidemiologist at the University of Toronto. “We often don’t really understand how people move or interact.”
The use of social media might be particularly useful for the tracking of so-called “social diseases”. Syphilis has returned as a public health concern according to the article.