Risk-informed decisions for epidemics

Abstract

Social media, an open and free platform containing large volume of user-generated content (UGC) is an ideal data source to achieve risk-informed decisions for epidemics. The probability and predictive value of how social systems deal with epidemics can be conceptually and empirically studied by monitoring social media data for formulating risk-informed decisions in improving preparedness and response to epidemics. ILI (influenza-like illness) surveillance by monitoring social media data offers opportunity to provide early warning signs for improving public health interventions. In this research, we monitored Weibo, a Chinese social media data on swine flu in 2011 to analyse the post content, the correlation with official surveillance data as well as geography distribution in order to verify whether Weibo is an effective platform for conducting risk-informed decision for epidemics.