Strategies for mHealth use in surveillance and triage after a biological attack

Over the past decade, strategies and plans have been developed at the local, state, and federal levels to respond to a biological attack. The primary public health goal of these plans is to disseminate medical countermeasures (MCM) to the public immediately after an attack to mitigate physical harm. However, these plans do not address ways to track the specific antibiotics that individuals receive nor the potential symptom onset if the initial MCMs are ineffective. This study will present the legal concerns and implementation strategies for using mobile health, otherwise known as mHealth, to collect information rapidly from the public in order to better inform secondary MCM distribution or other public health interventions in the event that drugs provided during the initial MCM distribution prove ineffective. Given the need to provide antitoxins once symptoms develop and their relative limited supply, a mHealth application could also be used to assist individuals in determining if they need to seek professional help as a first mechanism for triage. Using the case study of an antibiotic-resistant, aerosolized anthrax attack, this project will present a framework for designing and disseminating a mHealth application for use in emergency situations where multiple public health interventions may be needed.