Social Media and Health Crisis Communication During Epidemics

Denecke, K.; Atique, S.

Reacting to public health threats as early as possible is crucial in preventing harm from large population groups. Surveillance systems support the management and early detection of disease activity. Besides traditional systems that rely on reported diagnoses from laboratories, electronic media and discussion groups are increasingly recognized as valuable sources of public health alerts. Beyond, crisis communication increasingly relies upon online communication for exchanging information and opinions on a crisis and for supporting the coordination of resources including equipment, personnel, and information during a crisis situation. This chapter gives an overview on social media tools and data sources and their content with respect to a use in disease surveillance and health crisis management. We further provide an overview on approaches to disease surveillance using the Web and analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Ethical and legal aspects to be considered during implementation of web-based disease surveillance will be presented.