Infodemiology was defined by

Gunther Eysenbach Gunther Eysenbach is a German-Canadian researcher on healthcare, especially health policy, eHealth, and consumer health informatics. Career Eysenbach was born on 22 March 1967 in West Berlin, West Germany. While a medical student, he served o ...

in the early 2000s as

information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...

epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evide ...

. It is an area of science research focused on scanning the internet for user-contributed health-related content, with the ultimate goal of improving

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

. It is also defined as the science of mitigating public health problems resulting from an infodemic.

Origin of term

Eysenbach first used the term in the context of measuring and predicting the quality of health information on the Web (i.e., measuring the "supply" side of information). He later included in his definition methods and techniques which are designed to automatically measure and track health information "demand" (e.g., by analyzing search queries) as well as "supply" (e.g., by analyzing postings on webpages, in blogs, and news articles, for example through GPHIN) on the Internet with the overarching goal of informing public health policy and practice. In 2013, the Infovigil Project was launched in an effort to bring the research community together to help realize this goal. It is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Eysenbach demonstrated his point by showing a correlation between flu-related searches on

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

(demand data) and flu- incidence data. The method is shown to be better and more timely (i.e., can predict public health events earlier) than traditional

syndromic surveillance Public health surveillance (also epidemiological surveillance, clinical surveillance or syndromic surveillance) is, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), "the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-relat ...

methods such as reports by sentinel physicians.

Application

Researchers have applied an infodemiological approach to studying the spread of

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

SARS Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1), the first identified strain of the SARS coronavirus species, '' s ...

and

influenza Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptom ...

, vaccination uptake,'' Proceedings of the 25th ACM International on Conference on Information and Knowledge Management'', 1953-1956. antibiotics consumption, the incidence of multiple sclerosis, patterns of alcohol consumption, the efficacy of using the

social web The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social int ...

for personalization of health treatment, the contexts of

status epilepticus Status epilepticus (SE), or status seizure, is a single seizure lasting more than 5 minutes or 2 or more seizures within a 5-minute period without the person returning to normal between them. Previous definitions used a 30-minute time limit. The s ...

patients, factors of

Abdominal pain Abdominal pain, also known as a stomach ache, is a symptom associated with both non-serious and serious medical issues. Common causes of pain in the abdomen include gastroenteritis and irritable bowel syndrome. About 15% of people have a m ...

and its impact on quality of life and the effectiveness of the

Great American Smokeout The Great American Smokeout is an annual intervention event on the third Thursday of November by the American Cancer Society. Approximately 40 million American adults still smoke, and tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of dise ...

anti-smoking awareness event. Applications outside the field of health care include

urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water ...

and the study of economic trends and voter preferences.

References

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Origin of term

Application

See also

References

Further reading