To review current trends and issues in the development and use of mobile apps for public health surveillance and decision making in settings with different resource availability and technological development. The panel discussion will address cross-cutting issues of general interest, including timeliness, recruitment, validation, and engagement by presenting innovative examples of apps conceived for various uses in human and animal surveillance.
Introduction
An increasing number of mobile applications available for download provide biosurveillance capabilities using new and traditional data streams. Biosurveillance apps span a wide range of settings, uses, technologies, and resource capacities that provide health analysts rapid and efficient means of data collection, visualization, and analyses. However, this technological “heaven” is not free from the challenges of traditional biosurveillance applications, namely validation to inform specificity and recruitment and engagement to ensure representativeness. This panel will provide guidance for future development and utility of mobile apps by illustrating how these matters are addressed in field tested mobile applications.