NEJM - Integrating Social Media into Emergency-Preparedness Efforts

[sharon sanders]

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Integrating Social Media into Emergency-Preparedness Efforts

NEJM | July 27, 2011 | Topics: Public Health
Raina M. Merchant, M.D., Stacy Elmer, M.A., and Nicole Lurie, M.D., M.S.P.H.

Despite blocked Internet service, new social media such as ?speak-to-tweet? (which allows brief Twitter messages to be sent through a voice connection) were being used to improve communication about health and safety within the first few days of the 2011 Egyptian uprising, which had itself been organized by means of social media. After Haiti?s 2010 earthquake, Ushahidi, an open-source Web platform that uses ?crowd-sourced? information to support crisis management, linked health care providers requiring supplies to those who had them, and victims trapped under the rubble used Facebook to reach out for help.1 During the 2009 influenza pandemic, within minutes after the Alexandria, Virginia, health department tweeted and texted about where vaccine against H1N1 influenza was available, people flocked to vaccination sites. Community residents responding to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico texted photographs of oiled birds to the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, whose maps helped volunteers to identify areas most in need of clean-up efforts.

Clearly, social media are changing the way people communicate not only in their day-to-day lives, but also during disasters that threaten public health. Engaging with and using emerging social media may well place the emergency-management community, including medical and public health professionals, in a better position to respond to disasters. The effectiveness of our public health emergency system relies on routine attention to preparedness, agility in responding to daily stresses and catastrophes, and the resilience that promotes rapid recovery. Social media can enhance each of these component efforts.

more....

http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=14975&query=TOC

 

[Laidback Al]

Re: NEJM - Integrating Social Media into Emergency-Preparedness Efforts

The authors also make another point

. . . it is not always possible to know whether social media users are who they claim to be or whether the information they share is accurate. Although false messages that are broadcast widely are often rapidly corrected by other users, it is often difficult to separate real signals of a health crisis or a material need from background noise and opportunistic scams. . . .

This is not a problem at FluTrackers.com.

Readers here can be assured that the moderating team has the expertise to evaluate and interpret conflicting media reports when a disease outbreak is first reported, no matter where it happens around the world. Background noise will be filtered out and opportunistic scams removed immediately. FluTrackers.com strives to provide accurate and reliable public health information in real time.