Spring 2012

Hashtag Heroics

THE SOURCE: “Social and News Media Enable Estimation of Epidemiological Patterns Early in the 2010 Haitian Cholera Outbreak” by Rumi Chunara, Jason R. Andrews, and John S. Brownstein, in The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Jan. 2012.

Nine months after the horrific 2010 earthquake in Haiti, a cholera outbreak erupted. Almost half a million Haitians were stricken, and more than 6,500 died. A study by Harvard Medical School biomedical engineer Rumi Chunara and epidemiologists Jason R. Andrews and John S. Brownstein suggests that an unlikely set of media tools including Twitter can help public health workers anticipate and respond to disease outbreaks more effectively, particularly in countries with weak infrastructure such as Haiti.

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