Real-time Map of Infectious Outbreaks Briefs Disease Trackers, International Travelers

Need to know where avian flu, salmonella or dengue fever been popping up? A quick view of HEALTHmap shows you where more than 50 diseases have been reported around the world, who is reporting and how hot an outbreak is based on the number of reports. Drill down by content and city or narrow by disease and read what has been reported in the last 30 days.

HEALTHmap provides a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health by combing disparate data sources, of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization). Through an automated text processing system, the data is aggregated by disease and displayed by location for user-friendly access to the original alert. HEALTHmap provides a jumping-off point for real-time information on emerging infectious diseases and has particular interest for public health officials and international travelers.

The site was launched in September 2006 by infectious diseases researcher John Brownstein, PhD, and research software developer, Clark Freifeld, both of the Childrens Hospital Informatics Program. Brownstein and Freifeld continue to improve the site which started as a side project.

To access HEALTHmap, go to: http://www.healthmap.org/

The Children's Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP) is a multidisciplinary applied research program at Children's Hospital Boston and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health, Sciences and Technology. CHIP focuses in three areas: bioinformatics, public health informatics (including biosurveillance), and clinical informatics. Its diverse faculty includes physicians trained in information science, computer scientists with expertise in the biomedical sciences, mathematicians, and epidemiologists. CHIP provides shared resources to develop innovative information technologies with the goal of both enhancing biomedical research and improving patient care. CHIP also serves as the bioinformatics core for several national genomics investigations.

Source: Children's Hospital Boston