PopTech : Blog : When getting sick becomes social

When getting sick becomes social

Emily Spivack ( Bio / Posts ) | Tuesday, May 31, 2011 UTC

If there’s been an outbreak of whooping cough or the flu in your neighborhood or amongst your friends, it’s generally helpful to have that information at your fingertips. Sickweather is hoping to make that data more accessible. The tool scans social networks for mentions of illnesses and gives its users the opportunity to check in to see what his/her chances are for coming down with something.

While in the early stages of getting the site off the ground, Sickweather has provided an explanation about how it will work:

Sickweather's robust algorithm filters and qualifies this data from several public sources (including its own online community) and cross references them with location tags to produce real time "weather maps" of reported symptoms. This information is then used to forecast the movement of everything from stomach bugs to chronic illness and other sickness, including depression.

Sickweather has just opened its doors to beta testers but hypochondriacs, be warned! This may not be the best site for you.

Also worth noting are related projects including HealthMap and Google Flu Trends.

via Technology Review

Image: Sickweather

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