The use of Consumer Generated Data for Disease and Public Health Surveillance: a case study of foodborne illness

In recent years, data generated via social media and online review sites have emerged as a useful source of information for monitoring and mapping both disease and public health outbreaks. Available in near real time, these Consumer Generated Data can be attributed to a specific location and include a wealth of additional information. Used in a wide range of applications from mapping influenza outbreaks to monitoring dental pain, these data may also prove useful in the domain of food safety. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) estimate that 1.7 million cases of foodborne illness are contracted each year in the UK, of which 22,000 cases result in hospital admission and 700 result in fatality. National surveillance data not only severely underestimate the incidence of foodborne illness due to under reporting at both the GP and patient level, they are also untimely. This talk will present the advantages, methodological recommendations and considerations for the surveillance of foodborne illness using Consumer Generated Data.