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An Algorithm Identified West Africa’s Ebola Outbreak Before It Was Announced

35 points by SanderMak 12y ago

glifchits 12y ago
The title of this link is a bit sensationalist. Keep in mind: "What makes it so extraordinary that HealthMap picked up on the outbreak before the WHO’s announcement is not that the tool necessarily identified it first (it’s doubtful that it did), but that the algorithm was able to detect such small bits of informal information and piece them together as soon as the first reports of an unknown hemorrhagic fever started spreading."
elliptic 12y ago
I wonder how many of these sorts of algorithms are out there? We might be hearing about the guy that received 10 consecutive accurate stock tips.
TruffleLabs 12y ago
Having a predictive tool is interesting but is it (HealthMap) believed enough to influence decision making?
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  I doubt it. I thought about posting it to HN early on in the outbreak (when it was already in the news headlines) as a way to monitor events - I had gone looking for a tool like this, and was surprised not to find Google doing it in Maps - but I decided not to other because the Healthmap data seemed too 'fluffy' to be really informative. It's a great project but I'm not sure how you distinguish between real outbreaks and localized panics based on rumor.
mcenedella 12y ago
An algorithm that "identifies" outbreaks by assigning positive likelihood to each report from "local press" will: a) always identify outbreaks before WHO b) incorrectly identify substantially all cases by falsely indicating a positive c) be no more valuable to public health than a sensationalist supermarket tabloid A misleading and inaccurate article.
- SoftwareMaven 12y ago
  I think you are under-representing what HealthMap is[1]. It is more than a Google Alert tied to Google Maps and, while still fairly new, it is an active research and development project from Boston Children's Hospital, with a large set of publications around the problem-space of using big data to identify disease outbreaks[2]. So, yes, TFA is sensational, but that doesn't mean the tool it's reporting on is useless. 1. http://healthmap.org/site/about http://healthmap.org/site/about 2. http://healthmap.org/site/about/publications http://healthmap.org/site/about/publications
- dang 12y ago
  If anyone can suggest an accurate and neutral title, we're happy to change it.
sytelus 12y ago
Smells like a press release. No actual information on "algorithm" except: So how did a computer algorithm pick up on the start of the outbreak before the WHO? As it turns out, some of the first health care workers to see Ebola in Guinea regularly blog about their work. As they began to write about treating patients with Ebola-like symptoms, a few people on social media mentioned the blog posts. And it didn’t take long for HealthMap to detect these mentions. While social media isn’t necessarily the most reliable source of news, HealthMap’s algorithm is specifically designed to sort out the “noise” from the “signal” as it digs through the data, making the results far more useful.

35 points by SanderMak 12y ago

The title of this link is a bit sensationalist. Keep in mind: "What makes it so extraordinary that HealthMap picked up on the outbreak before the WHO’s announcement is not that the tool necessarily identified it first (it’s doubtful that it did), but that the algorithm was able to detect such small bits of informal information and piece them together as soon as the first reports of an unknown hemorrhagic fever started spreading."

elliptic 12y ago

I wonder how many of these sorts of algorithms are out there? We might be hearing about the guy that received 10 consecutive accurate stock tips.

TruffleLabs 12y ago

Having a predictive tool is interesting but is it (HealthMap) believed enough to influence decision making?

anigbrowl 12y ago
I doubt it. I thought about posting it to HN early on in the outbreak (when it was already in the news headlines) as a way to monitor events - I had gone looking for a tool like this, and was surprised not to find Google doing it in Maps - but I decided not to other because the Healthmap data seemed too 'fluffy' to be really informative. It's a great project but I'm not sure how you distinguish between real outbreaks and localized panics based on rumor.

mcenedella 12y ago

An algorithm that "identifies" outbreaks by assigning positive likelihood to each report from "local press" will: a) always identify outbreaks before WHO b) incorrectly identify substantially all cases by falsely indicating a positive c) be no more valuable to public health than a sensationalist supermarket tabloid A misleading and inaccurate article.

SoftwareMaven 12y ago
I think you are under-representing what HealthMap is[1]. It is more than a Google Alert tied to Google Maps and, while still fairly new, it is an active research and development project from Boston Children's Hospital, with a large set of publications around the problem-space of using big data to identify disease outbreaks[2]. So, yes, TFA is sensational, but that doesn't mean the tool it's reporting on is useless. 1. http://healthmap.org/site/about http://healthmap.org/site/about 2. http://healthmap.org/site/about/publications http://healthmap.org/site/about/publications
dang 12y ago
If anyone can suggest an accurate and neutral title, we're happy to change it.

sytelus 12y ago

Smells like a press release. No actual information on "algorithm" except: So how did a computer algorithm pick up on the start of the outbreak before the WHO? As it turns out, some of the first health care workers to see Ebola in Guinea regularly blog about their work. As they began to write about treating patients with Ebola-like symptoms, a few people on social media mentioned the blog posts. And it didn’t take long for HealthMap to detect these mentions. While social media isn’t necessarily the most reliable source of news, HealthMap’s algorithm is specifically designed to sort out the “noise” from the “signal” as it digs through the data, making the results far more useful.