BuzzFeed, that ridiculously profitable bastion of clickbait and quizzes all your Facebook friends annoy you with actually has real journalists and an investigative division, and once in a while, along comes something that’s truly newsworthy. Friday was one of those times.
In a thoughtful article, BuzzFeed discusses how analysis of social media and Internet search habits has proven so useful in identifying public health outbreaks and other trends.
Google Flu Trends is well-known already, though it’s clearly far from perfect, as MedCity News has reported. Newer entrants build upon this, going beyond search to mine social media.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
For example, mobile app Sickweather issues geographically targeted alerts about clusters of infectious diseases, based on tweets and other indicators on social media. BuzzFeed said that Sickweather publicly noted the start of flu season before the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention did and “beat Chicago media” in reporting on an outbreak of whooping cough.
A Web-based service called Iodine, co-founded by former Wired Executive Editor Thomas Goetz, crowdsources reviews of medications. Iodine, according to BuzzFeed, is “create a sort of drug reaction profile” based on keywords and common themes in reviews to supplement information in drug labels, physician instructions and medical literature.
