Information is imperative to detecting and intervening in a disease outbreak, but the enormous amount of information that public health leaders must sift through can become overwhelming and obstructive. In the disease outbreak environment, it is imperative to understand which sources of information add value and should be used for decision making in this limited timeframe. Recent research has found that social media sources and news media sources may provide indicators of disease outbreaks prior to traditional reporting sources (i.e. surveillance systems) (1). WHO uses informal information sources for about 65% of their outbreak investigations and relies on informal sources for daily surveillance activities (2).
Objective
Share the results of a survey on knowledge and attitudes regarding digital disease detection amongst ISDS members and share the resulting framework.