PLoS Medicine
(Accessed 6 April 2013)
http://www.plosmedicine.org/

Policy Forum
Big Data Opportunities for Global Infectious Disease Surveillance
Simon I. Hay, Dylan B. George, Catherine L. Moyes, John S. Brownstein
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001413

Summary Points
– Systems to provide static spatially continuous maps of infectious disease risk and continually updated reports of infectious disease occurrence exist but to-date the two have never been combined.

– Novel online data sources, such as social media, combined with epidemiologically relevant environmental information are valuable new data sources that can assist the “real-time” updating of spatial maps.

– Advances in machine learning and the use of crowd sourcing open up the possibility of developing a continually updated atlas of infectious diseases.

– Freely available dynamic infectious disease risk maps would be valuable to a wide range of health professionals from policy makers prioritizing limited resources to individual clinicians.