Posted: September 1st, 2009 - 10:49pm by Ben Chapman

In an attempt to harness and utilize the millions of tweeters, google searchers and bloggers in the U.S. into do-goodery, the Washington Post reports that folks are being encouraged to share details of flu-like symptoms and search for H1N1 information online if they believe they are ill. Informatics experts are mobilized to crunch data generated by webcrawlers in hopes that infections can be modeled geographically and lead to an early warning system:

Currently, most disease tracking is done through doctors reporting cases of illness they have seen. It's a reliable system but often involves a lag time of a week or more in reporting and does not account for people who don't go to the doctor.

Internet surveillance raises questions about privacy and confidentiality. But experts say it has the advantage of speed and can augment the current system by detecting sick people who might not see a doctor.

Singapore is going further by using cellphones in surveillance, and hoping to limit flu spread:

In Singapore, scientists have gone a step further, testing a system called FluLog that could use Bluetooth cellphone technology to locate people who had been in proximity to someone who has become infected.

Cool. The Singaporeans were also ahead of the rest of the world on posting restaurant grades in 1997. Go Singapore.

Mike Batz sent on an article from Wired about an iPhone app that is built to share info about outbreaks and find disease trends near the user:

Outbreaks Near Me is a location-aware application for the iPhone based on the free HealthMap epidemiological web service, which allows users to access disease-outbreak information. But the mobile version, released today, one-ups its cord-bound counterpart: Users can contribute signs that public health trouble is afoot in what the organization is calling “participatory epidemiology.”

Double cool. Go participatory epidemiology.