The digital revolution offers new ways to fight epidemics

A tap on the HealthMap iPhone application brings up a cluster of red pins on a map, representing nearby cases of swine flu. Another tap brings up a form for ordinary Americans to add to the collection by reporting bouts they have or know about.

HealthMap Outbreaks Near Me is among scores of iPhone apps (see “New iPhone App Locates, Reports H1N1 Outbreaks,” 2 September 2009 HSNW), along with social networks, Wikipedia and flu-tracking sites, that give consumers new ways to share information, shape conversations, and keep tabs on swine flu and other health threats like it.

Technology Review reports that with instant two-way communication unavailable during past pandemics and smaller outbreaks, the public now can help paint a fuller picture of what is happening and complement the often delayed and restrained announcements from health officials.

The swine flu infections have been waning since October, but the apps and other digital tools have transformed the way such health crises will be tracked in years to come. They offer a window into the opportunities — and dangers — that come with the rapid spread of information from everyday people.

Technology Review writes that these digital tools could open the door to mass panic from unreliable or false reports. The public, after all, is often unfamiliar with medical terminology and can mistake ordinary colds for more serious illnesses such as the swine flu. Also, there is no ample evidence that people are actually changing their behavior as a result of these tools.

These tools may ultimately be no more than a fun way for people to connect — not entirely useful, perhaps even misleading.

Still, the more than 100 swine flu apps for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, either free or for a fee, may mollify some concerns people have about health outbreaks because people don’t like to be kept in the dark too long.

HealthMap Outbreaks Near Me has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. By learning of outbreaks nearby, a user can take preventive measures, such as getting a vaccine or washing hands more diligently.

This is why software developer Clark Freifeld and epidemiologist John Brownstein started HealthMap in 2006, first as a Web site before introducing apps for the iPhone in September and for mobile phones using the Android operating system later.

The project, housed at the Children’s Hospital Boston and funded primarily by the Google.org foundation, automatically scours the Web for clues to a new pandemic. Users can also submit reports on cases in their areas, to supplement reports that local health officials send to federal agencies.

The reports from local officials have to be verified, so they take longer to reach federal agencies and ultimately to reach the public. Although HealthMap tries to verify each user-submitted report, it does not do so as vigorously. It is willing to take the chance that some inaccurate information slips through so that all the reports — good or bad — get out more quickly.

Technology Review writes that having learned from experiences with swine flu, HealthMap plans to tweak its system to get information out even faster the next time. This includes looking for patterns in the symptoms reported by groups of people in an area, rather than waiting for an individual to report only cases confirmed with a doctor.

Meanwhile, the CDC News Reader iPhone app, created by a company unaffiliated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), offers the federal agency’s swine flu updates, public health articles, and travel notices. Another, SwineAware, links to swine flu statistics and briefings from the CDC and the World Health Organization.

Mark Peterson, a 23-year-old iPhone app developer from Newark, New Jersey, created Swine Flu 101 to provide the latest news and a state-by-state list of cases and deaths.

Beyond iPhone apps, Tim Vickers, a microbiologist in St. Louis who studies tropical diseases, has made it his mission to monitor the information exchange on Wikipedia, the collaborative encyclopedia that lets anyone contribute, regardless of expertise. Vickers said he wrote about a third of Wikipedia’s article on swine flu and has edited it nearly 200 times to amplify it and correct mistakes.

“In general, having more information is better than less,” said David Bell, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania. But there’s a danger that “the information gets transmitted over and over and the story changes.”

The CDC tries to respond to errors it sees online. Early in the swine flu outbreak, for instance, some people on Twitter cited eating pork as a risk. The federal agency tweeted back: “you can NOT get swine flu from eating pork.” The CDC won’t catch every instance of misinformation, though, including those spread through restricted circles on Facebook and elsewhere.