263118 What the news knew: Assessing media reports to improve situational awareness

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Kelly Bennett, MPH , Fusion Cell, Office of Preparedness and Emergency Operations, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC
Sumiko Mekaru, DVM, MPVM, MLIS , Department of Emergency Medicine/Informatics Program, Children's Hospital Boston, Boston, MA
John Brownstein, DPhil , Department of Emergency Medicine/Informatics Program, Children's Hospital Boston, Boston, MA
Clark Freifeld, MS , Department of Emergency Medicine/Informatics Program, Children's Hospital Boston, Boston, MA
Jennifer Olsen, MPH , Fusion Cell, Office of Preparedness and Emergency Operations, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC
Background/Purpose: To understand the damage to health infrastructure, stress on the medical community, and health status of communities in hurricane-impact regions, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response relies on official reports for situational awareness. Yet studies have shown that data from open source channels can provide earlier indication of events of public health significance. In collaboration with HealthMap, ASPR started a project to improve situational awareness during the 2011 hurricane season by monitoring a news feed developed by HealthMap.

Methods: Starting with combinations of disaster terms and health terms, 22 search strings were identified that retrieved reports on the health effects of Hurricane Irene from a major Internet news indexer. Using the pre-existing HealthMap architecture, the search queries were run every 30 to 60 minutes (earliest article was on 23 August 2011 when Irene was near the Bahamas) and had retrieved over 8000 articles by 4 Sept (one week after the storm dissipated).

Results/Outcomes: This body of Internet news articles helped identify the types of information available and provided a training set for improved automation of data ingestion during future hurricanes. Analysts will categorize and prioritize articles, refining the news feed and improving the utility of the feed for the 2012 hurricane season.

Conclusions: Key health surveillance areas were captured, including compromised health infrastructure and mortality counts. Early indication of compromised health infrastructure and dangers to the publics' health can be extracted from digital reports and augment official reports, improving hurricane preparedness and response.

Learning Areas:
Communication and informatics
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
• Explain how digital health surveillance can be used to improve public health situational awareness for hurricane-impact regions. • Describe the approach of Fusion and HealthMap to identify effective search terms and refine the open source query and retrieval process

Keywords: Media, Surveillance

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am co-lead on this collaborative project between the Fusion Cell in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response and the HealthMap team at Children's Hospital Boston. We are working together to improve public health situational awareness during hurricanes through monitoring news media. Sumiko Mekaru and I would like to present on this innovative and exciting project.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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