Abstract:The Internet is changing the way global disease surveillance is conducted. Countries and international organizations are increasingly placing their outbreak reports on the Internet
“…Certainly any effort to construct a site that would allow for the circulation of pre-validated information should be sensitive to the risks of generating disruptive rumors. Given the existence of sites like ProMed, which was created in 1994 (Mitchell 1997;Woodall 2001), it may be possible to assess such risks before launching a site with the properties discussed here. A less formal approach would be to attempt to reinstate a norm of informal information-sharing among colleagues.…”
Pandemic response takes place in distributed, uncertain, and high-tempo environments. These conditions require public health agencies to rapidly generate and roll out publicly accountable responses in the face of incomplete and ambiguous evidence. To perform under these conditions, public health organizations have devised several tools to support decision making and response. This article examines two such tools that debuted during the 2009 H1N1 outbreak-the 2005 International Health Regulations and influenza pandemic planning. Relying on an international network of researchers who gained access to lead public health agencies in advance of the 2009 pandemic, this study draws on several forms of data-primary documentation, interviews, and an extended workshop with key officials-that were collected as the pandemic unfolded. With this unique dataset, we analyze the performance of the International Health Regulations and pandemic influenza plans from a "sensemaking" perspective. We find that insufficient attention to both the complexities and time horizons involved with adequate sensemaking limited the ability of both tools to fully meet their goals. To improve organizational performance during global pandemics, the sensemaking perspective calls attention to the importance of informal venues of informationsharing and to the need for decisionmakers to continually update planning assumptions.
“…Certainly any effort to construct a site that would allow for the circulation of pre-validated information should be sensitive to the risks of generating disruptive rumors. Given the existence of sites like ProMed, which was created in 1994 (Mitchell 1997;Woodall 2001), it may be possible to assess such risks before launching a site with the properties discussed here. A less formal approach would be to attempt to reinstate a norm of informal information-sharing among colleagues.…”
Pandemic response takes place in distributed, uncertain, and high-tempo environments. These conditions require public health agencies to rapidly generate and roll out publicly accountable responses in the face of incomplete and ambiguous evidence. To perform under these conditions, public health organizations have devised several tools to support decision making and response. This article examines two such tools that debuted during the 2009 H1N1 outbreak-the 2005 International Health Regulations and influenza pandemic planning. Relying on an international network of researchers who gained access to lead public health agencies in advance of the 2009 pandemic, this study draws on several forms of data-primary documentation, interviews, and an extended workshop with key officials-that were collected as the pandemic unfolded. With this unique dataset, we analyze the performance of the International Health Regulations and pandemic influenza plans from a "sensemaking" perspective. We find that insufficient attention to both the complexities and time horizons involved with adequate sensemaking limited the ability of both tools to fully meet their goals. To improve organizational performance during global pandemics, the sensemaking perspective calls attention to the importance of informal venues of informationsharing and to the need for decisionmakers to continually update planning assumptions.
“…Until recently, the IHR made the WHO exceedingly dependent on official country reports by prohibiting the use of other sources of information. Although ProMED‐mail became an important unofficial source of information about threats to public health after its founding in 1994, for many years the WHO was constrained from officially using it (Woodall ) . Over time, the WHO’s stance on these alternative sources of information evolved.…”
Section: Knowledge and Ignorance In Disease Surveillance: The 1969 Ihmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…As the volume of information available from electronic sources and from health experts dispersed around the world increased, the pressure to use such information also increased. With increasingly sophisticated tracking systems, for instance, it became possible to demonstrate that deaths (even of particular named individuals) could have been prevented by earlier issuance of travelers’ advisories (Woodall ). Often, though, sub rosa information was less useful for issuing official warnings than for pressuring countries to report or for asking pointed questions about the adequacy or accuracy of reported information.…”
Section: Knowledge and Ignorance In Disease Surveillance: The 1969 Ihmentioning
confidence: 99%
“… To be sure, the new technologies were not free, and Wenham () notes that considerable human intervention was required to make sense of the volumes of information arriving through GPHIN and GOARN. But these costs were disproportionately borne by richer countries, who also agreed to help build infrastructure and supply expertise for poorer countries. …”
The SARS epidemic that broke out in late 2002 in China’s Guangdong Province highlighted the difficulties of reliance on state‐provided information when states have incentives to conceal discrediting information about public health threats. Using SARS and the International Health Regulations (IHR) as a starting point, this article examines negotiated information orders in global public health governance and the irregularities in the supply of data that underlie them. Negotiated information orders within and among the organizations in a field (here, e.g., the World Health Organization, member states, government agencies, and international non‐governmental organizations) spell out relationships among different categories of knowledge and non‐knowledge – what is known, acknowledged to be known, and available for use in decision making versus what might be known but cannot be acknowledged or officially used. Through information leveraging, technically sufficient information then becomes socially sufficient information. Thus it is especially information initially categorized as non‐knowledge – including suppressed data, rumour, unverified evidence, and unofficial information – that creates pressure for the renegotiation of information orders. The argument and evidence of the article also address broader issues about how international law and global norms are realigned, how global norms change, and how social groups manage risk.
“…Several internet-scanning systems have been developed starting in 1997 with the Global Public Health Intelligence Network -GPHIN [12], and followed by many others such as the World Health Organizations of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network -WHOGOARN [18], the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases from the International Society for Infectious Diseases -ProMED-mail [20], the Health Map system [21], and the Global Health Monitor based on the Bio Caster ontology [22].…”
Poultry disease statistics in Nigeria reveal a serious and growing problem with absolute fatality rate and casualty figure rising rapidly. A crucial goal of infectious disease surveillance is the early detection of epidemics, which is essential for disease control. The current system for monitoring poultry disease is based on conventional method using extension workers and confirmed case reports which has proved ineffective over the years. The poultry disease monitoring system aimed at assisting poultry farmers, healthcare officers and stakeholders alike to understand the distribution of poultry diseases and the state of poultry farms in Nigeria in order to ensure early detection and response during an outbreak. The system requirement was elicited from poultry farmers located within the south-western part of Nigeria using interviews while the requirements were designed using use-case diagrams for the representing data insertion and data query. The system was implemented using HTML, PHP and CSS while the database was implemented using MYSQL. In conclusion, the use of monitoring system would be of great importance in providing accurate, timely and detailed information about poultry disease in Nigeria. It will also help to alert disease control agencies about poultry related diseases in Nigeria.
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