title: The Potential of Social Media and Internet-Based Data in Preventing and Fighting Infectious Diseases: From Internet to Twitter.
abstract: Health threats due to infectious diseases used to be a major public health concerns around the globe till mid of twentieth century when effective public health interventions helped in eradicating a number of infectious diseases around the world. Over the past 15 years, there has been a rise in the number of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases being reported such as the Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2002, HINI in 2009, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012, Ebola in 2014, and Zika in 2016. These emerging viral infectious diseases have led to serious public health concerns leading to death and causing fear and anxiety among the public. More importantly, at the moment, the prevention and control of viral infectious diseases is difficult due to a lack of effective vaccines. Thus having real-time reporting tools are paramount to alert relevant public health surveillance systems and authorities about taking the right and necessary actions to control and minimize the potential harmful effects of viral infectious diseases. Social media and Internet-based data can play a major role in real-time reporting to empower active public health surveillance systems for controlling and fighting infectious diseases.
authors.affiliation: Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs, College of Public Health and Health Informatics, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. kalsurimi@gmail.com.|Department of Primary Care and Public Health, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK. kalsurimi@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Khaled
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Al-Surimi
authors.affiliation: Consultant, Medical Informatics, King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Mohammed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Khalifa
authors.affiliation: Women Health, Family and Community Medicine Organization, King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz University Hospital, Princess Norah Bent Abdurrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Salwa
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bahkali
authors.affiliation: College of Public Health and Health Informatics, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Ashraf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: El-Metwally
authors.affiliation: College of Public Health and Health Informatics, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Mowafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Househ
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000379:methods*; D020407:Internet; D011159:Population Surveillance; D061108:Social Media; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control*
keywords: Infectious diseases; Internet; Public health surveillance; Social media