tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Sometimes the response to the outbreak of a disease can make things worse ? such as when people panic and flee, potentially spreading the disease to new areas. The ability to anticipate when such overreactions might occur could help public health officials take steps to limit the dangers.
Now a new computer model could provide a way of making such forecasts, based on a combination of data collected from hospitals, social media, and other sources. The model was developed by researchers at MIT, Draper Laboratory, and Ascel Bio, and is described in a paper published in the journal Interface.
The research grew out of earlier studies of how behavior spreads through social networks, explains co-author Marta Gonzalez, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT. The spread of information ? and misinformation ? about disease outbreaks ?had not been studied, and it?s hard to get detailed information on the panic reactions,? Gonzalez says. ?How do you quantify panic??
One way of analyzing those reactions is by studying news reporting on outbreaks, as well as messages posted on social media, and comparing those with data from hospital records about the actual incidence of the disease.
In many cases, the reaction to an outbreak can cause more harm than the disease itself:
....
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/computer-model-predicts-disease-outbreak-response-0114
Now a new computer model could provide a way of making such forecasts, based on a combination of data collected from hospitals, social media, and other sources. The model was developed by researchers at MIT, Draper Laboratory, and Ascel Bio, and is described in a paper published in the journal Interface.
The research grew out of earlier studies of how behavior spreads through social networks, explains co-author Marta Gonzalez, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT. The spread of information ? and misinformation ? about disease outbreaks ?had not been studied, and it?s hard to get detailed information on the panic reactions,? Gonzalez says. ?How do you quantify panic??
One way of analyzing those reactions is by studying news reporting on outbreaks, as well as messages posted on social media, and comparing those with data from hospital records about the actual incidence of the disease.
In many cases, the reaction to an outbreak can cause more harm than the disease itself:
....
http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/computer-model-predicts-disease-outbreak-response-0114