A cross-sectional content analysis of Android applications for asthma.

Providing patients opportunities for self-management and education about their disease, asthma applications designed for use on an Android operating system can have positive health outcomes across the range of demographics who use mHealth applications. This study provides a content analysis of freely available Google Android Platform Mobile Applications for Asthma. A list of applications was collected on 26 October 2014, using the search feature of the Google Play Android platform and using the words and phrases "Asthma," "Lung Function" and "Peak Flow." Each application was coded for its approach to asthma self-management, based on categories adapted by Huckvale et al., which are based on the Global Initiative for Asthma and the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program. The characteristics of the 15 asthma applications are described. Most of the asthma applications' primary function focused on patient self-monitoring and self-assessment. Using the HON Code, we found low health information quality across all asthma applications. Android asthma applications can have positive outcomes in helping patients as they provide opportunities for self-management and education about their disease. Future research should continue to monitor and evaluate the development and use of mHealth Asthma Applications. Based on these findings, and their indication of a gap in existing research, subsequent studies can continue to evaluate the development and use of mHealth Asthma Applications with increasing methodological consistency to improve the quality of in-app health information.

Impact of Twitter intensity, time, and location on message lapse of bluebird's pursuit of fleas in Madagascar.

BACKGROUND: The recent outbreak of bubonic plague in Madagascar reminds us of the continuing public health challenges posed by such deadly diseases in various parts of the world years after their eradication. This study examines the role of Twitter in public health disease surveillance with special focus on how Twitter intensity, time, and location issues explain Twitter plague message delay. METHOD: We retrospectively analyzed the Twitter feeds of the 2014 bubonic plague outbreak in Madagascar. The analyses are based on the plague-related data available in the public domain between November 19th and 27th 2014. The data were compiled in March 2015. We calculated the time differential between the tweets and retweets, and analyzed various characteristics of the Tweets including Twitter intensity of the users. RESULTS: A total of 6873 Twitter users were included in the study, of which 52% tweeted plague-related information during the morning hours (before mid-day), and 87% of the tweets came from the west of the epicenter of the plague. More importantly, while session of tweet lease and relative location had effect on message lapse, absolute location did not. Additionally, we found no evidence of differential effect of location on message lapse based on relative location i.e. tweets from west or east nor number of following. However, there is evidence that more intense Twitter use appears to have significant effect on message lapse such that as the number of tweets became more intense, time differential between the tweets and retweets increased while higher number of retweets diminished message lapse. CONCLUSION: This study affirms that Twitter can play an important role in ongoing disease surveillance and the timely dissemination of information during public health emergencies independent of the time and space restrictions. Further ways should be explored to embed social media channels in routine public health practice.

Using HealthMap to Analyse Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) Data.

In this paper, a web-based disease surveillance platform known as HealthMap is used to retrieve and analyze data pertaining to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) within the geographical confinements of the Arab World and North African countries. An account was opened with HealthMap to gain access to data related to MERS for the time-period 9 September 2015 to 7 March 2015. HealthMap accumulates and assesses outbreak data from a range of sources, this includes news media (Google News (Arabic)), validated official alerts (WHO) and expert-curated accounts (ProMED). Search terms "MERS" and "Coronavirus" were used to search HealthMap for relevant alerts pertaining to MERS. The search terms were geographically limited to the Arab World and North African countries. Our results show that the prevalence of MERS still remains to be the highest in Saudi Arabia, however, between 9 September 2015 and 7 March 2015 there has been a slight overall trend in decreasing number of MERS related alerts within Saudi Arabia and the Arab world. All countries other than Saudi Arabia such as, UAE, Tunisia, Qatar, Oman, Lebanon, Kuwait, Jordan and Egypt together amounted for only 25.6% (n=214) of total MERS alerts (n=837). Our findings show that the rise in the aggregated contribution of internet based participatory surveillance systems for tracking non-communicable diseases such as MERS has aided in improving the accuracy, sensitivity and timeliness for monitoring disease outbreaks. Use of resources such as HealthMap can aid in the timely assessment of risk factors, vaccination development initiatives, prevention strategies and measured allocation of healthcare resources while running at a low cost with greater flexibility and increased scalability compared to isolated diseases surveillance systems.