The Emerging Role of Social Media in Public Health

Explore the evolving landscape of public health surveillance and epidemic intelligence gathering in this 35-minute conference talk from ICAAC 2012. Delve into how Internet technology has transformed the dissemination of disease and outbreak data through both formal and informal channels. Discover the current capabilities and future directions of using non-traditional data sources for rapid detection of emerging infectious diseases. Learn about digital disease detection, recent examples of social media's impact on public health, and the use of data for situational awareness. Examine how events like the Haiti cholera outbreak manifested on social platforms, and understand the value of using keywords and location data for monitoring. Investigate the challenges and opportunities in evaluating data from diverse sources, including population biases, clustering, and incentives. Gain insights into early signal detection and vaccine delivery strategies. This talk by Dr. John Brownstein from Children's Hospital Boston & Harvard Medical School offers a comprehensive overview of social media's emerging role in shaping public health practices.