This post briefly describes three nifty resources for staying current with global health data. The first is HealthMap. HealthMap is a global map that shows recent outbreaks of infectious diseases as reported in third-party sources. It is a project of Children's Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP), Harvard-MIT Division of Health sciences and Technology. HealthMap is available in English, French, and Spanish. The wonderful thing about HealthMap is that a quick glance at it communicates more about infectious disease hotspots than hundreds of words could do.
The second tool is ProMed-mail which is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. ProMed-mail offers reports of infectious disease outbreaks on its web site as well as providing a subscription e-mail service. ProMed-mail provides information in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. ProMed-mail includes information on emerging infectious diseases by providing coverage of outbreaks in animal and plant populations. Many diseases that infect other species have the potential to evolve into infectious agents among humans.Even if they don't cross into human populations, they can disrupt food chains and local economies which have implications for human health. Like HealthMap, ProMed-mail is an important source of global surveillance and reporting to the medical community.
Finally, there is WorldClock by Poodwaddle.com. In the time it takes to write a text message or an e-mail, you can watch the clock roll up hundreds of births, scores of deaths from multiple causes, and dozens of people become infected with HIV. Of course the clock is based on estimates rather than actual counts up-to-the second counts. Nonetheless, the clock is a dramatic depiction of the enormity of global health issues.
Commentary
Global health surveillance and wide dissemination of information is important work. It takes an informed public to protect itself against disease. It takes informed ministries of health to intervene to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, to design appropriate health education programs, and to offer health programs where they will have the most impact. It takes well-informed clinicians to diagnose unusual infectious disease that individuals may have contracted through travel and to treat patients appropriately to minimize the spread of disease. We are all indebted to everyone who works to lay the informational foundation of sound clinical and public health decision-making by collecting and disseminating global health data.
The second tool is ProMed-mail which is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. ProMed-mail offers reports of infectious disease outbreaks on its web site as well as providing a subscription e-mail service. ProMed-mail provides information in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. ProMed-mail includes information on emerging infectious diseases by providing coverage of outbreaks in animal and plant populations. Many diseases that infect other species have the potential to evolve into infectious agents among humans.Even if they don't cross into human populations, they can disrupt food chains and local economies which have implications for human health. Like HealthMap, ProMed-mail is an important source of global surveillance and reporting to the medical community.
Finally, there is WorldClock by Poodwaddle.com. In the time it takes to write a text message or an e-mail, you can watch the clock roll up hundreds of births, scores of deaths from multiple causes, and dozens of people become infected with HIV. Of course the clock is based on estimates rather than actual counts up-to-the second counts. Nonetheless, the clock is a dramatic depiction of the enormity of global health issues.
Commentary
Global health surveillance and wide dissemination of information is important work. It takes an informed public to protect itself against disease. It takes informed ministries of health to intervene to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, to design appropriate health education programs, and to offer health programs where they will have the most impact. It takes well-informed clinicians to diagnose unusual infectious disease that individuals may have contracted through travel and to treat patients appropriately to minimize the spread of disease. We are all indebted to everyone who works to lay the informational foundation of sound clinical and public health decision-making by collecting and disseminating global health data.
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