WASHINGTON — Can social media help keep you well? That’s the premise behind a website and app called Sickweather that tracks the spread of illnesses by scanning social media.
Yes, all those postings about sore throats, kids with tummy aches and parents with runny noses can provide vital clues to public health. And unlike government disease statistics, which can take days or weeks to collect and report, Sickweather operates in real time.
The whole idea started in 2011 with one guy who had a stomachache.
“I was sick with a stomach virus a few years ago, and as a father of three, I wanted to know if there was something going around or if it was food poisoning,” says Graham Dodge, the co-founder and CEO of Sickweather.
He looked online for information about trending stomach bugs, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website and his local health department.
Dodge says there was nothing, and he began to wonder whether there was a way to compile data that could be used to track illness rapidly on a community level.
The answer came when he went on Facebook: A friend had posted that he had the very same stomach virus symptoms.
“That is when I realized that using social media could be a real-time source of data for disease surveillance,” Dodge says.
Some might wonder whether the data is really accurate, since not everyone — especially little kids — is on social media. Dodge says it gives a remarkably reliable reading, and that official government statistics have validated the findings.
As for the CDC, it is so intrigued with Sickweather that it is consulting with the Baltimore-based company on future high tech projects. Sickweather now tracks more than 23 symptoms and illness and qualifies more than 600,000 reports of illness each month.
Locally, it is beginning to see signs of flu in the area, even though there is no official confirmation. But that doesn’t surprise Graham Dodge. In 2012, Sickweather successfully detected the start of a very early flu season — six weeks before the CDC.
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