Suchergebnisse

The Web has become a rich source of personal information in the last few years. People twitter, blog, and chat online. Current feelings, experiences or latest news are posted. For instance, first hints to disease outbreaks, customer preferences, or political changes could be identified with this data. Surveillance or early warning systems enable such detection of changes and support humans in getting information on changing situations. However, the variety of data that could be considered for surveillance is immense, ranging from sensor-measured values to collected counts and information extracted from natural language documents.Denecke's objective is to introduce the multiple possibilities and facets of surveillance and its applications. She first introduces the task of surveillance and provides an overview on surveillance in various domains. Next, the various information sources that are available and could already be used by surveillance systems are summarized. In the main part of the book, her focus is on unstructured data as a source for surveillance. An overview on existing methods as well as methods to be developed in order to process this kind of data with respect to surveillance is presented. As an example application, she introduces disease surveillance using Web 2.0, including corresponding methods and challenges to be addressed. The book closes with remarks on new possibilities for surveillance gained by recent developments of the Internet and mobile communication, and with an outline of future challenges.

Context: The exchange of health information on the Internet has been heralded as an opportunity to improve public health surveillance. In a field that has traditionally relied on an established system of mandatory and voluntary reporting of known infectious diseases by doctors and laboratories to governmental agencies, innovations in social media and so-called user-generated information could lead to faster recognition of cases of infectious disease. More direct access to such data could enable surveillance epidemiologists to detect potential public health threats such as rare, new diseases or early-level warnings for epidemics. But how useful are data from social media and the Internet, and what is the potential to enhance surveillance? The challenges of using these emerging surveillance systems for infectious disease epidemiology, including the specific resources needed, technical requirements, and acceptability to public health practitioners and policymakers, have wide-reaching implications for public health surveillance in the 21st century.