A New Era of Epidemiology: Digital Epidemiology for Investigating the COVID-19 Outbreak in China

A novel pneumonia-like coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by a novel coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 has swept across China and the world. Public health measures that were effective in previous infection outbreaks (eg, wearing a face mask, quarantining) were implemented in this outbreak. Available m...

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Autores principales: He, Zonglin, Zhang, Casper J P, Huang, Jian, Zhai, Jingyan, Zhou, Shuang, Chiu, Joyce Wai-Ting, Sheng, Jie, Tsang, Winghei, Akinwunmi, Babatunde O, Ming, Wai-Kit
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7511225/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32805703
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/21685
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author He, Zonglin
Zhang, Casper J P
Huang, Jian
Zhai, Jingyan
Zhou, Shuang
Chiu, Joyce Wai-Ting
Sheng, Jie
Tsang, Winghei
Akinwunmi, Babatunde O
Ming, Wai-Kit
author_facet He, Zonglin
Zhang, Casper J P
Huang, Jian
Zhai, Jingyan
Zhou, Shuang
Chiu, Joyce Wai-Ting
Sheng, Jie
Tsang, Winghei
Akinwunmi, Babatunde O
Ming, Wai-Kit
author_sort He, Zonglin
collection PubMed
description A novel pneumonia-like coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by a novel coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 has swept across China and the world. Public health measures that were effective in previous infection outbreaks (eg, wearing a face mask, quarantining) were implemented in this outbreak. Available multidimensional social network data that take advantage of the recent rapid development of information and communication technologies allow for an exploration of disease spread and control via a modernized epidemiological approach. By using spatiotemporal data and real-time information, we can provide more accurate estimates of disease spread patterns related to human activities and enable more efficient responses to the outbreak. Two real cases during the COVID-19 outbreak demonstrated the application of emerging technologies and digital data in monitoring human movements related to disease spread. Although the ethical issues related to using digital epidemiology are still under debate, the cases reported in this article may enable the identification of more effective public health measures, as well as future applications of such digitally directed epidemiological approaches in controlling infectious disease outbreaks, which offer an alternative and modern outlook on addressing the long-standing challenges in population health.
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spelling pubmed-75112252020-10-05 A New Era of Epidemiology: Digital Epidemiology for Investigating the COVID-19 Outbreak in China He, Zonglin Zhang, Casper J P Huang, Jian Zhai, Jingyan Zhou, Shuang Chiu, Joyce Wai-Ting Sheng, Jie Tsang, Winghei Akinwunmi, Babatunde O Ming, Wai-Kit J Med Internet Res Viewpoint A novel pneumonia-like coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by a novel coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 has swept across China and the world. Public health measures that were effective in previous infection outbreaks (eg, wearing a face mask, quarantining) were implemented in this outbreak. Available multidimensional social network data that take advantage of the recent rapid development of information and communication technologies allow for an exploration of disease spread and control via a modernized epidemiological approach. By using spatiotemporal data and real-time information, we can provide more accurate estimates of disease spread patterns related to human activities and enable more efficient responses to the outbreak. Two real cases during the COVID-19 outbreak demonstrated the application of emerging technologies and digital data in monitoring human movements related to disease spread. Although the ethical issues related to using digital epidemiology are still under debate, the cases reported in this article may enable the identification of more effective public health measures, as well as future applications of such digitally directed epidemiological approaches in controlling infectious disease outbreaks, which offer an alternative and modern outlook on addressing the long-standing challenges in population health. JMIR Publications 2020-09-17 /pmc/articles/PMC7511225/ /pubmed/32805703 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/21685 Text en ©Zonglin He, Casper J P Zhang, Jian Huang, Jingyan Zhai, Shuang Zhou, Joyce Wai-Ting Chiu, Jie Sheng, Winghei Tsang, Babatunde O Akinwunmi, Wai-Kit Ming. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 17.09.2020. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Viewpoint
He, Zonglin
Zhang, Casper J P
Huang, Jian
Zhai, Jingyan
Zhou, Shuang
Chiu, Joyce Wai-Ting
Sheng, Jie
Tsang, Winghei
Akinwunmi, Babatunde O
Ming, Wai-Kit
A New Era of Epidemiology: Digital Epidemiology for Investigating the COVID-19 Outbreak in China
title A New Era of Epidemiology: Digital Epidemiology for Investigating the COVID-19 Outbreak in China
title_full A New Era of Epidemiology: Digital Epidemiology for Investigating the COVID-19 Outbreak in China
title_fullStr A New Era of Epidemiology: Digital Epidemiology for Investigating the COVID-19 Outbreak in China
title_full_unstemmed A New Era of Epidemiology: Digital Epidemiology for Investigating the COVID-19 Outbreak in China
title_short A New Era of Epidemiology: Digital Epidemiology for Investigating the COVID-19 Outbreak in China
title_sort new era of epidemiology: digital epidemiology for investigating the covid-19 outbreak in china
topic Viewpoint
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7511225/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32805703
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/21685
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