Sickweather: Twitter can track diseases, can it predict epidemics?

There is not only "Justin Bieber fever" on Twitter, but also normal human fever.

Sickweather founder Graham Dodge analyzed 17 million Facebook and Twitter statuses and tweets to figure out how to track the spread of disease in the United States through social networks.

In the actual forecast, we found some interesting content, such as the fastest disease spread in Hartford, Connecticut and the capital Washington, D.C., which Dodge called the "Infectious Disease Alliance."

The Super Bowl, a major sporting event in the United States, also has a significant impact on the spread of infectious diseases. During the game in February this year, data from Twitter showed that the total number of people suffering from infectious diseases was more than twice the population of Dayton, Ohio.

According to Mashable, multiple studies have shown that social media can accurately track the spread of infectious diseases. Dodge believes that observations like this can not only be used to predict disease outbreaks, but also much faster than in the past.

Sickweather is the first site to provide consumers with disease spread tracking information by analyzing social content.

Sickweather searches social networking sites based on 24 different characteristics of the disease and displays the search results on a map (it can search globally, not just in the United States). The spread of infectious diseases on the map is very intuitive to users. Users can also add their own disease information directly on the map.

Tracking infectious diseases online is not new. In 2008 and 2009, Google and Yahoo helped people discover the spread of influenza through search engines, effectively preventing the widespread spread of influenza. In 2010, Google launched the "Flu Index" to provide the public with flu forecast information.

Social media is much more advanced than search engines. Dodge said: "Through social media, you can check the spread of diseases in your area and country, and better understand the spread of epidemics." There are many signs that can help track diseases, such as going to the emergency room for medical treatment and buying medicine in the pharmacy. Mark Dredze said: "Social media is one of the fastest sources of information."

It may take the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention several weeks to predict the development and spread of an epidemic, but by analyzing social network information, predictions can be obtained more quickly, helping public health departments to provide medical assistance and health services more quickly.

So it’s no surprise that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is interested in Sickweather’s forecasting methods. The department recently launched a competition for apps that can not only analyze past illnesses but also spot signs of public health events through social media. Sickweather is vying for a share of the $21,000 prize.

Dr Nicole Lurie said: “Looking back at the avian flu outbreak, social media provided some of the first-hand information about the outbreak.

Dodge said: "Our prediction method is completely different from the traditional method. The traditional prediction method is like checking the almanac, which is very slow, while our method is like scanning with Doppler radar, which is very fast. (Zhang Longxin)