Publications

Social media has become an important tool for physicians and scientists to rapidly share information with colleagues around the world. Use of social media outlets-in particular, Twitter-has risen rapidly in recent years, and it is now customary for national hematology meetings to have thousands of participants who share photographs and textual summaries of data presentations, as well as personal insights and commentary, with virtual audiences. These messages, or "tweets," can be specifically followed using a hashtag ontology which arose organically over the past several years in the context of medical meetings. This system facilitates communication between meeting attendees and those colleagues near and far with similar interests, thus globalizing the conversation between hematology providers, investigators, patient advocates, professional organizations, regulatory agencies, testing companies, and the pharmaceutical industry about cutting-edge developments in the field.

Internet-based surveillance methods for vector-borne diseases (VBDs) using "big data" sources such as Google, Twitter, and internet newswire scraping have recently been developed, yet reviews on such "digital disease detection" methods have focused on respiratory pathogens, particularly in high-income regions. Here, we present a narrative review of the literature that has examined the performance of internet-based biosurveillance for diseases caused by vector-borne viruses, parasites, and other pathogens, including Zika, dengue, other arthropod-borne viruses, malaria, leishmaniasis, and Lyme disease across a range of settings, including low- and middle-income countries. The fundamental features, advantages, and drawbacks of each internet big data source are presented for those with varying familiarity of "digital epidemiology." We conclude with some of the challenges and future directions in using internet-based biosurveillance for the surveillance and control of VBD.