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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Data collected from a hotline has been combined with geographical data in order to help predict surges in dengue fever in Pakistan [npr.org]:

The possible predictive power of phone calls is the topic of a paper [sciencemag.org] [open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501215] published in Science Advances about a dengue epidemic that hit Lahore, Pakistan, a city of upward of 7 million. A research team out of New York University invited people to call a hotline if they had symptoms that might be consistent with dengue. By analyzing 300,000 calls, the team could not only identify outbreak areas — they could predict future surges two weeks or more in advance.

Spread by mosquitoes, dengue [who.int] causes fever, vomiting and muscle and joint pain. But it's not often fatal. With proper medical care, the death rate [who.int] is typically less than 1 percent. In this outbreak, more than 21,000 patients were affected and more than 350 people died. "We'd never had a dengue outbreak of this sort before," says Umar Saif [itu.edu.pk], chairman of the Punjab Information Technology Board and a coauthor of the study. The number of cases was unprecedented in the area. "The government wasn't prepared, and we didn't know what to do. We were basically caught totally by surprise."

[...] As people began calling the hotline, Saif and Lakshminarayanan Subramanian [nyu.edu], a computer scientist from NYU, began to notice a trend. If an area had a surge in calls, neighborhood hospitals would see a spike in patients in the following weeks. Not every patient had called the hotline, but the scientists could still forecast the number of cases based on those who did. Subramanian formed a team to devise a computer system that could make such predictions.

The researchers began to test their model in 2012, adding in weather conditions that were favorable to mosquitoes. The goal was to create digital maps for public officials, indicating areas at risk. It's unusual to have very specific information about geography in disease forecasts, but this model could predict not only patient numbers for Lahore but the districts where the disease was likely spreading. So officials could direct scarce resources toward areas on the verge of a dengue spike. They sprayed for mosquitoes, added hospital beds, and presented progress reports.

In 2012, the number of confirmed dengue patients in Lahore dropped to 257. The disease may have naturally been on the decline, but the scientists believe the system played a critical role by directing help to the regions where it was most needed. Since the pilot study in 2012-13, the hotline predictive system has rolled out broadly across Punjab, the province that's home to Lahore.

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