infodemiology – Pandemic Timeline https://pandemictimeline.com Chronological Sequence of Events Wed, 22 Jan 2025 19:20:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 https://pandemictimeline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Covid-150x150.ico infodemiology – Pandemic Timeline https://pandemictimeline.com 32 32 Gunther Eysenbach founds the Journal of Medical Internet Research https://pandemictimeline.com/1999/08/gunther-eysenbach-founds-the-journal-of-medical-internet-research/ Tue, 10 Aug 1999 00:00:53 +0000 https://pandemictimeline.com/?p=788 Gunther Eysenbach is the first Infodemiologist. Why does the world need the JMIR? The Internet – and more specifically, the World-Wide-Web – has an impact on many areas of medicine – broadly we can divide them into “clinical information and telemedicine”, “medical education and information exchange” and “consumer health informatics”: First, Internet protocols are used…

Read more →

]]>
Gunther Eysenbach is the first Infodemiologist.

Why does the world need the JMIR? The Internet – and more specifically, the World-Wide-Web – has an impact on many areas of medicine – broadly we can divide them into “clinical information and telemedicine”, “medical education and information exchange” and “consumer health informatics”:

  • First, Internet protocols are used for clinical information and communication. In the future, Internet technology will be the platform for many telemedical applications.
  • Second, the Internet revolutionizes the gathering, access and dissemination of non-clinical information in medicine: Bibliographic and factual databases are now world-wide accessible via graphical user interfaces, epidemiological and public health information can be gathered using the Internet, and increasingly the Internet is used for interactive medical education applications.
  • Third, the Internet plays an important role for consumer health education, health promotion and teleprevention. (As an aside, it should be emphasized that “health education” on the Internet goes beyond the traditional model of health education, where a medical professional teaches the patient: On the Internet, much “health education” is done “consumer-to-consumer” by means of patient self support groups organizing in cyberspace. These patient-to-patient interchanges are becoming an important part of healthcare and are redefining the traditional model of preventive medicine and health promotion).

Sources:

Related:

]]> The term “infodemiology” is coined https://pandemictimeline.com/2002/12/the-term-infodemiology-is-coined/ Sun, 15 Dec 2002 00:00:58 +0000 https://pandemictimeline.com/?p=779 Infodemiology can be defined as the science of distribution and determinants of information in an electronic medium, specifically the Internet, or in a population, with the ultimate aim to inform public health and public policy. Infodemiology data can be collected and analyzed in near real time. Examples for infodemiology applications include: the analysis of queries…

Read more →

]]>

Infodemiology can be defined as the science of distribution and determinants of information in an electronic medium, specifically the Internet, or in a population, with the ultimate aim to inform public health and public policy. Infodemiology data can be collected and analyzed in near real time. Examples for infodemiology applications include: the analysis of queries from Internet search engines to predict disease outbreaks (eg. influenza); monitoring peoples’ status updates on microblogs such as Twitter for syndromic surveillance; detecting and quantifying disparities in health information availability; identifying and monitoring of public health relevant publications on the Internet (eg. anti-vaccination sites, but also news articles or expert-curated outbreak reports); automated tools to measure information diffusion and knowledge translation, and tracking the effectiveness of health marketing campaigns. Moreover, analyzing how people search and navigate the Internet for health-related information, as well as how they communicate and share this information, can provide valuable insights into health-related behavior of populations.

Do these infodemiologists (a.k.a. “fact checkers”) have a mechanism for self-correcting when rumors prove true?

Sources:

  • Research Journal
    December 15, 2002. Gunther Eysenbach. “Infodemiology: The Epidemiology of (Mis)Information.” The American Journal of Medicine 113 (9): 763–65.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-9343(02)01473-0.
    Research Journal.
  • Research Journal
    March 27, 2009. Gunther Eysenbach. “Infodemiology and Infoveillance: Framework for an Emerging Set of Public Health Informatics Methods to Analyze Search, Communication and Publication Behavior on the Internet.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 11 (1): e1157.
    https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.1157.
    Research Journal.
  • Research Journal
    January 17, 2014. Hua Gu, Bin Chen, Honghong Zhu, Tao Jiang, Xinyi Wang, Lei Chen, Zhenggang Jiang, Dawei Zheng, and Jianmin Jiang. “Importance of Internet Surveillance in Public Health Emergency Control and Prevention: Evidence From a Digital Epidemiologic Study During Avian Influenza A H7N9 Outbreaks.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 16 (1): e2911.
    https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.2911.
    Research Journal.
  • Research Journal
    March 4, 2013. Julie M. Robillard, Louise Whiteley, Thomas Wade Johnson, Jonathan Lim, Wyeth W. Wasserman, and Judy Illes. “Utilizing Social Media to Study Information-Seeking and Ethical Issues in Gene Therapy.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 15 (3): e2313.
    https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.2313.
    Research Journal.
  • Reference
    “Infodemiology.” In Wikipedia.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Infodemiology.
    Reference.

See also, on this site:

]]> Gunther Eysenbach begins syndromic surveillance of the Internet https://pandemictimeline.com/2004/10/gunther-eysenbach-begins-syndromic-surveillance-of-the-internet/ Sun, 03 Oct 2004 00:00:04 +0000 https://pandemictimeline.com/?p=1744 Abstract Background Syndromic surveillance uses health-related data that precede diagnosis and signal a sufficient probability of a case or an outbreak to warrant further public health response. Objective While most syndromic surveillance systems rely on data from clinical encounters with health professionals, I started to explore in 2004 whether analysis of trends in Internet searches…

Read more →

]]>

Abstract

Background
Syndromic surveillance uses health-related data that precede diagnosis and signal a sufficient probability of a case or an outbreak to warrant further public health response.

Objective
While most syndromic surveillance systems rely on data from clinical encounters with health professionals, I started to explore in 2004 whether analysis of trends in Internet searches can be useful to predict outbreaks such as influenza epidemics and prospectively gathered data on Internet search trends for this purpose.

Results
There is an excellent correlation between the number of clicks on a keyword-triggered link in Google with epidemiological data from the flu season 2004/2005 in Canada (Pearson correlation coefficient of current week clicks with the following week influenza cases r=.91). The “Google ad sentinel method” proved to be more timely, more accurate and – with a total cost of Can$365.64 for the entire flu-season – considerably cheaper than the traditional method of reports on influenza-like illnesses observed in clinics by sentinel physicians.

Conclusion
Systematically collecting and analyzing health information demand data from the Internet has considerable potential to be used for syndromic surveillance. Tracking web searches on the Internet has the potential to predict population-based events relevant for public health purposes, such as real outbreaks, but may also be confounded by “epidemics of fear”. Data from such “infodemiology studies” should also include longitudinal data on health information supply.

Sources:

Related:

]]> The WHO declares an “infodemic” https://pandemictimeline.com/2020/02/the-who-declares-an-infodemic/ Sat, 15 Feb 2020 00:00:13 +0000 https://pandemictimeline.com/?p=778 “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus, and is just as dangerous” – WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Munich Security Conference on Feb 15, 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines an infodemic as “an over-abundance of information, some accurate and some…

Read more →

]]>

“We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus, and is just as dangerous” – WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Munich Security Conference on Feb 15, 2020.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines an infodemic as “an over-abundance of information, some accurate and some not that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it.

The WHO strategy to control an infodemic includes these four pillars:

First Pillar: Facilitate Accurate Knowledge Translation
Second Pillar: Knowledge Refinement, Filtering, and Fact-Checking
Third pillar: Build eHealth Literacy
Fourth Pillar: Monitoring, Infodemiology, Infoveillance, and Social Listening

Meanwhile, scientists also monitor social media for clues about how drugs are faring.  “Evidence from the real world is valuable, as clinical trials often enroll patients who aren’t representative of the general population. We learn more about drug safety from real-world evidence and can adjust clinical recommendations to balance risk and benefits.” (WSJ)  This real-world evidence includes social media posting.  And yet, the aggressive fact-checking and censorship of anything negative to the vaccines including reports of personal experiences is removing signals that warn scientists of problems.

Sources:

Related:

  • Research Journal
    April 9, 2020. Jose Yunam Cuan-Baltazar, Maria José Muñoz-Perez, Carolina Robledo-Vega, Maria Fernanda Pérez-Zepeda, and Elena Soto-Vega. “Misinformation of COVID-19 on the Internet: Infodemiology Study.” JMIR Public Health and Surveillance 6 (2): e18444.
    https://doi.org/10.2196/18444.
    Research Journal.
  • Research Journal
    February 15, 2021. Bin Chen, Xinyi Chen, Jin Pan, Kui Liu, Bo Xie, Wei Wang, Ying Peng, Fei Wang, Na Li, and Jianmin Jiang. “Dissemination and Refutation of Rumors During the COVID-19 Outbreak in China: Infodemiology Study.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 23 (2): e22427.
    https://doi.org/10.2196/22427.
    Research Journal.
  • Research Journal
    December 15, 2020. Elaine Okanyene Nsoesie, Nina Cesare, Martin Müller, and Al Ozonoff. “COVID-19 Misinformation Spread in Eight Countries: Exponential Growth Modeling Study.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 22 (12): e24425.
    https://doi.org/10.2196/24425.
    Research Journal.
  • Research Journal
    August 25, 2020. Alessandro Rovetta, and Akshaya Srikanth Bhagavathula. “Global Infodemiology of COVID-19: Analysis of Google Web Searches and Instagram Hashtags.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 22 (8): e20673.
    https://doi.org/10.2196/20673.
    Research Journal.
  • News
    June 22, 2021. Joseph A. Ladapo and Harvey A. Risch. “Opinion | Are Covid Vaccines Riskier Than Advertised?” Wall Street Journal, sec. Opinion.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-covid-vaccines-riskier-than-advertised-11624381749.
    News.

See also, on this site:

]]> WHO holds first infodemiology conference https://pandemictimeline.com/2020/06/who-holds-first-infodemiology-conference/ Tue, 30 Jun 2020 00:00:50 +0000 https://pandemictimeline.com/?p=782 Objectives: Understand the multidisciplinary nature of infodemic management; Identify current examples and tools to understand, measure and control infodemics; Build a public health research agenda to direct focus and investment in this emerging scientific field; and Establish a community of practice and research. — WHO Sources:

Read more →

]]>

Objectives:

  • Understand the multidisciplinary nature of infodemic management;
  • Identify current examples and tools to understand, measure and control infodemics;
  • Build a public health research agenda to direct focus and investment in this emerging scientific field; and
  • Establish a community of practice and research.

— WHO

Sources:

]]> AMA publishes its propaganda guide for physicians https://pandemictimeline.com/2021/02/ama-publishes-its-propaganda-guide-for-physicians/ Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:01:38 +0000 https://pandemictimeline.com/?p=4806 Winter 2021 The languaging suggestions in the AMA’s document amount to a type of covert hypnosis.  It would be an interesting exercise to take a mainstream media news story about COVID-19 and reverse the suggested languaging and neutralize or remove any judgmental wording. Sources: Related:

Read more →

]]>

Winter 2021

The languaging suggestions in the AMA’s document amount to a type of covert hypnosis.  It would be an interesting exercise to take a mainstream media news story about COVID-19 and reverse the suggested languaging and neutralize or remove any judgmental wording.

Sources:

Related:

]]> WHO-Europe publishes the Vaccine Crisis Communication Manual https://pandemictimeline.com/2022/02/who-europe-publishes-the-vaccine-crisis-communication-manual/ Mon, 21 Feb 2022 00:00:11 +0000 https://pandemictimeline.com/?p=12689 This document provides immunization programmes and other stakeholders with step-by-step guidance on how to effectively manage the communication response to vaccine-related events, particularly those with a potentially high impact on public trust, which are therefore considered to be a vaccine crisis. — Vaccine Crisis Communication Manual In other words, this document is about how to…

Read more →

]]>

This document provides immunization programmes and other stakeholders with step-by-step guidance on how to effectively manage the communication response to vaccine-related events, particularly those with a potentially high impact on public trust, which are therefore considered to be a vaccine crisis.

— Vaccine Crisis Communication Manual

In other words, this document is about how to maintain public trust in a vaccine program when a reason to not trust it has developed.  The reason could be valid.  Vaccine-related events can include new critical scientific studies, social media stories, or critical media reports.  Policies such as these have resulted in the censorship of top experts who were trying to warn the masses of potential dangers.

It’s a crisis that the truth is coming out.

— Maria Zeee

Sources:

Related:

]]> #TwitterFiles19: “The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine” https://pandemictimeline.com/2023/03/twitterfiles19-the-great-covid-19-lie-machine/ Fri, 17 Mar 2023 00:00:43 +0000 https://pandemictimeline.com/?p=13239 1.TWITTER FILES #19 The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories” 2.“The release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s Spring 2020 emails… has been used to exacerbate distrust in Dr. Fauci.” “Increased distrust in Fauci’s expert guidance.” 3.“Reports of vaccinated individuals contracting Covid-19 anyway”; “natural immunity”; suggesting Covid-19 “leaked from…

Read more →

]]>

— Matt Taibbi

Source:

  • Social Media
    March 17, 2023. Matt Taibbi [@mtaibbi]. “1.TWITTER FILES #19 The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of ‘True Stories’ Https://T.Co/V41dyC26ZR.” Tweet. Twitter.
    https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1636729166631432195.
    Social Media.
]]> Pres. Trump ends federal censorship https://pandemictimeline.com/2025/01/pres-trump-ends-federal-censorship/ Mon, 20 Jan 2025 00:00:14 +0000 https://pandemictimeline.com/?p=17781 Section 1.  Purpose.The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference.  Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often…

Read more →

]]>

Section 1.  Purpose.The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference.  Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve.  Under the guise of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation,” the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.  Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.

— Executive Order

That can’t happen anymore, the order said.

Citing the First Amendment, the order outlined what will now be the policy of the federal government when it comes to free speech. The government’s job is to:

(a) secure the right of the American people to engage in constitutionally protected speech;

(b) ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen;

(c) ensure that no taxpayer resources are used to engage in or facilitate any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen; and

(d) identify and take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to censorship of protected speech.

No federal agency, department or worker can use government resources for an activity that contradicts that job, the order said.

The order also called on state attorneys general to investigate whether the Biden administration engaged in censorship of Americans’ views. It directed them to write a report about its findings that includes “recommendations for appropriate remedial actions to be taken based on the findings.”

— Children’s Health Defense

Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. Misinformation and disinformation are not interchangeable terms: Misinformation can exist with or without specific malicious intent whereas disinformation is distinct in that the information is deliberately deceptive and propagated. Misinformation can include inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, or false information as well as selective or half-truths.

— Wikipedia: Misinformation

Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic deceptions and media manipulation tactics to advance political, military, or commercial goals. Disinformation is implemented through attacks that “weaponize multiple rhetorical strategies and forms of knowing—including not only falsehoods but also truths, half-truths, and value judgements—to exploit and amplify culture wars and other identity-driven controversies.”

— Wikipedia: Disinformation

Malinformation is information which is based on fact, but removed from its original context in order to mislead, harm, or manipulate. Whether something should be considered malinformation can therefore contain an element of subjectivity, and it is therefore a controversial concept. Critics believe it can be used to censor dissenting opinions.

— Wikipedia: Malinformation

Sources:

Related:

]]>