Mining Social Media and Web Searches For Disease Detection

Yang, Y. Tony; Horneffer, Michael; DiLisio, Nicole

As society becomes increasingly wired, it becomes more important to analyse Internet-based sources of information. Online participation has exploded over the course of the past few decades and is expected to expand still further. Public health officials must be aware of these new trends and understand them in order to adjust how they gather information. Web searches, blog postings, social networks, and geographical information systems should not be thought of as replacements for tra- Perspective and Debates ditional epidemic intelligence tools. Rather, they should be considered useful supplements to existing methodologies. Like the electronic database for the librarian, data taken from the Internet can be an invaluable tool to the epidemiologist. Careful study and analysis will ensure the appropriate application of these new web-based tools.