title: A 21st century approach to tackling dengue: Crowdsourced surveillance, predictive mapping and tailored communication.
abstract: This paper describes a social media system to prevent dengue in Sri Lanka and potentially in the rest of the South and Southeast Asia regions. The system integrates three concepts of public health prevention that have thus far been implemented only in silos. First, the predictive surveillance component uses a computer simulation to forewarn health authorities and the general public about impending disease outbreaks. The civic engagement component allows the general public to use social media tools to interact and engage with health authorities by aiding them in surveillance efforts by reporting symptoms, mosquito bites and breeding sites using smartphone technologies. The health communication component utilizes citizen data gathered from the first two components to disseminate customized health awareness messages to enhance knowledge and increase preventive behaviors among citizens. The system, known as "Mo-Buzz," will be made available on a host of digital platforms like simple mobile phones, smart phones and a website. We present challenges and lessons learnt including content validation, stakeholder collaborations and applied trans-disciplinary research.
authors.affiliation: Center of Social Media Innovations for Communities (COSMIC), Nanyang Technological University, HSS-06-16D, 14 Nanyang Drive, 637332 Singapore. Electronic address: tmaylwin@ntu.edu.sg.
authors.forename: May O
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Lwin
authors.affiliation: Center of Social Media Innovations for Communities (COSMIC), Nanyang Technological University, HSS-06-15, 14 Nanyang Drive, 637332 Singapore. Electronic address: santoshv@ntu.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Santosh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vijaykumar
authors.affiliation: Center of Social Media Innovations for Communities (COSMIC), Nanyang Technological University, HSS-06-15, 14 Nanyang Drive, 637332 Singapore. Electronic address: ofernando@ntu.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Owen Noel Newton
authors.initials: ON
authors.lastname: Fernando
authors.affiliation: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, SPMS-PA-04-03, 21 Nanyang Link, 637371 Singapore. Electronic address: cheongsam@ntu.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Siew Ann
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Cheong
authors.affiliation: Center of Social Media Innovations for Communities (COSMIC), Nanyang Technological University, HSS-06-15, 14 Nanyang Drive, 637332 Singapore. Electronic address: Vajira@ntu.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Vajira Sampath
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Rathnayake
authors.affiliation: Center of Social Media Innovations for Communities (COSMIC), Nanyang Technological University, HSS-06-15, 14 Nanyang Drive, 637332 Singapore. Electronic address: gtxlim@ntu.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Gentatsu
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: Center of Social Media Innovations for Communities (COSMIC), Nanyang Technological University, HSS-06-15, 14 Nanyang Drive, 637332 Singapore. Electronic address: tyltheng@ntu.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Yin-Leng
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Theng
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India. Electronic address: sc@ee.iitb.ac.in.
authors.forename: Subhasis
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chaudhuri
authors.affiliation: Center of Social Media Innovations for Communities (COSMIC), Nanyang Technological University, HSS-06-16E, 14 Nanyang Drive, 637332 Singapore. Electronic address: sfoo@ntu.edu.sg.
authors.forename: Schubert
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Foo
mesh_terms: D001210:Asia, Southeastern / Q000453:epidemiology; D003198:Computer Simulation; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000379:methods*; D003715:Dengue / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control*; D058015:Health Communication / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011634:Public Health; D061108:Social Media; D013188:Sri Lanka / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Asia; Dengue; Health communication; Social media; mHealth