Today I gave a talk called, “Crowd-sourcing public health: The Foodborne Chicago Project” at the Schwabe Symposium 2015: Big, Open, Crowd-sourced and Exhaust(ed)!
Here’s the abstract for the conference:
Evolution in technology has made the possibilities for data collection, information-exchange, networking, and data integration limitless. Using new and emerging technologies to conduct research, promote animal or human health behavior change and facilitate decision making is fast becoming the norm. Grassroots communication efforts have stimulated technological innovations that are facilitating social change (e.g., Crisis Commons and Ushahidi), capturing epidemiological trends (e.g., Google Flu; Bernardo et al., 2013), driving the development of the so-called ‘quantified self’ and transforming the nature of human and animal health systems (e.g., Patients Like Me, I-Cow, LifeLearn Sofie).
What do these technological advances mean for veterinary epidemiology? What is the impact on our methodologies? How may they impact our pedagogy? Are they transformational (or disrupting) forces in epidemiological research and veterinary medicine?
We have invited a prestigious group of speakers to share models and insight for the use of emerging technologies for research, public and animal health, and clinical practice. A key aspect of the symposium is a panel question and answer session on how these novel data sources impact research, teaching and practice in veterinary medicine and epidemiology.
