Resources of the Week: Swine Flu
By Shirl Kennedy, Senior Editor
This past Sunday, U.S. public health officials declared a public health emergency, as diagnosed cases of swine flu continued to mount. As expected, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is keeping tabs on the disease, as is the World Health Organization (WHO).
We thought it might be a good time to round up some reliable resources about swine flu. Pete Weiss, our contributing editor, found a blog called Effect Measure, part of the ScienceBlogs network, which he identifies as "a good aggregator of news regarding this flu outbreak." The About page explains the blog's name and describes its authors:
In epidemiology an effect is the endpoint of a causal mechanism. An effect measure is an estimate of the influence of a particular factor on a population's health. The Editors of Effect Measure are senior public health scientists and practitioners. Their names would be immediately recognizable to many in the public health community. They prefer to keep their online and public lives separate to allow maximum freedom of expression. Paul Revere was a member of the first local Board of Health in the United States (Boston, 1799). The Editors sign their posts "Revere" to recognize the public service of a professional forerunner better known for other things.
The CDC link above serves as the government's main information hub, offering:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services offers a "swine flu widget" that can be embedded n a blog, home page, whatever. It links to the swine flu info at the CDC. Click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page to get the code.
+ Swine flu is a zoonotic disease (Utah State Extension; PDF, 90 KB), meaning “an infectious disease transmissible under natural conditions between vertebrate animals and human beings.” This being the case, you would expect that the veterinary profession might have useful information...and you would be correct. The American Association of Swine Veterinarians offers some fact sheets right on its home page.
+ Also, MedlinePlus just put up a new page on Swine Flu.
+ The National Library of Medicine offers Enviro-Health Links - 2009 H1N1 (Swine) Flu. Includes pointers to information from government agencies -- U.S. and international -- as well as news feeds, maps, veterinary and scientific resources.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
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