November 20, 2011

International Conference on eHealth 2011

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

I have arrived in Malaga to cover the live blog of the International Conference on eHealth 2011. On the short flight over here, I went through the research papers to be presented on the first day of the conference which starts tomorrow - and what a way to kick things off.

After the morning keynote lecture on the role of epidemic intelligence in international surveillance by Denis Columbier, from the European Disease for Prevention and Control, there will be presentations and discussions of research on how web 2.0 technologies are expected to revolutionise public health, epidemiology and epidemic prediction.

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Tomorrow's research highlights will include a review of social media in epidemiology and surveillance, an overview of the characteristics of Facebook users, an analysis of Twitter messages in the Tohoku earthquake and a study on the use of SMS for tsunami early warnings.

If you are unable to join us in Malaga, fear not, as I will live blog from selected sessions. An online programme of the conference is available here.

The conference is fully interactive so please do take part in the online discussions and submit questions for any of our speakers through the live blog or tweet us @ehealthconf - and don't forget to add the hashtag #ehealth2011.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and questions over the next few days!

Views here are not not representative of the organising committee or any speakers taking part in the conference.

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