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New technologies for reporting real-time emergent infections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2012

RUMI CHUNARA ,
CLARK C. FREIFELD  and
JOHN S. BROWNSTEIN
RUMI CHUNARA*
Affiliation:
Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, 02215, USA Children's Hospital Informatics Program, Division of Emergency Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, 02215, USA
CLARK C. FREIFELD
Affiliation:
Children's Hospital Informatics Program, Division of Emergency Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, 02215, USA Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University College of Engineering, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
JOHN S. BROWNSTEIN
Affiliation:
Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, 02215, USA Children's Hospital Informatics Program, Division of Emergency Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, 02215, USA
*
*Corresponding author: 1 Autumn St. Fourth Floor Suite 433 Boston, MA 02215, Tel: 857-218-5108. Fax: 617-730-0267. E-mail: rumi@alum.mit.edu
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Summary

Novel technologies have prompted a new paradigm in disease surveillance. Advances in computation, communications and materials enable new technologies such as mobile phones and microfluidic chips. In this paper we illustrate examples of new technologies that can augment disease detection. We describe technologies harnessing the internet, mobile phones, point of care diagnostic tools and methods that facilitate detection from passively collected unstructured data. We demonstrate how these can all assist in quicker detection, investigation and response to emerging infectious events. Novel technologies enable collection and dissemination of epidemic intelligence data to both public health practitioners and the general public, enabling finer temporal and spatial resolution of disease monitoring than through traditional public health processes.

Keywords

Technologyreal-timeinformalcrowd-sourced
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 139 , Issue 14: Dynamics of parasite distributions: modern analytical approaches , December 2012 , pp. 1843 - 1851
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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