A 21st century approach to tackling dengue: Crowdsourced surveillance, predictive mapping and tailored communication

Lwin, May O., Vijaykumar, Santosh, Fernando, Owen Noel Newton, Cheong, Siew Ann, Rathnayake, Vajira Sampath, Lim, Gentatsu, Theng, Yin-Leng, Chaudhuri, Subhasis and Foo, Schubert (2014) A 21st century approach to tackling dengue: Crowdsourced surveillance, predictive mapping and tailored communication. Acta Tropica, 130. pp. 100-107. ISSN 0001-706X

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Abstract

This paper describes a social media system to prevent dengue in Sri Lanka and potentially in the rest of the South and Southeast Asia regions. The system integrates three concepts of public health prevention that have thus far been implemented only in silos. First, the predictive surveillance component uses a computer simulation to forewarn health authorities and the general public about impending disease outbreaks. The civic engagement component allows the general public to use social media tools to interact and engage with health authorities by aiding them in surveillance efforts by reporting symptoms, mosquito bites and breeding sites using smartphone technologies. The health communication component utilizes citizen data gathered from the first two components to disseminate customized health awareness messages to enhance knowledge and increase preventive behaviors among citizens. The system, known as “Mo-Buzz,” will be made available on a host of digital platforms like simple mobile phones, smart phones and a website. We present challenges and lessons learnt including content validation, stakeholder collaborations and applied trans-disciplinary research.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Dengue; Asia; Social media; mHealth; Health communication
Subjects:	C800 Psychology C900 Others in Biological Sciences P100 Information Services
Department:	Faculties > Health and Life Sciences > Psychology
Depositing User:	Paul Burns
Date Deposited:	13 Mar 2018 16:03
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2019 21:31
URI:	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/33717

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