Disaster: Potentials and Pitfalls of Web 2.0 Use in Public Emergencies

Peter A. Lipson, MDWilliam Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, MI

Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine, WSU, OUWBSOM

Medical and Science Blogger

Web 2.0: WTF?

Web 2.0 usually includes rapid forms of electronic communication such as:

Twitter

Blogs

Social Networking sites (such as facebook)

Wikis

Web communities have their own languages and cultures

Allowing web communities to control the language

Key to Web 2.0 is rapid sharing of information

Medicine on the Web: Impact

According to Pew, over 60% of people obtain and act on medical information found online. http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/8-The-Social-Life-of-Health-Information.aspx

Regarding the quality of that informaion...

Your results may vary

Medicine on the Web: Quality

There is no official arbiter of medical information online

Commercial sites often masquerade as information

Alternative medicine sites are very popular and helped spread misinformation during the H1N1 pandemic

Opportunities

Medicine 2.0 has many participants, opportunities for contact

Information can be spread rapidly

Information can spread via multiple independent media (cell phone, internet, etc)

Is there an online “ethic” of social responsibility?

Pitfalls

Any attempt to harness the social media for “good” may be hijacked

Misinformation can be spread easily (Iran)

Unethical users can co-opt disaster networks for commercial or other purposes

Web 2.0 in Disasters

Preparedness

Early warning

Response

Recovery

Mitigation

Preparedness 2.0

Audience

Lay public

Concerned professionals

Agencies and officials

Preparedness 2.0: Audience

Lay public: readers of medical blogs are interested in reading about disasters, and may be interested in learning about their roles.

Ongoing conversation may mitigate apathy

Transparency regarding allocation of scarce medical resources

Preparedness 2.0: Audience

Concerned Professionals read medical blogs and are interested in learning about disaster and their possible roles as allies

Preparedness 2.0

Agencies and officials can monitor online resources and liase with potential allies

Staff policies to avoid free-lancing

Response 2.0

Early Warning

Real time dissemination of information

Accuracy

Centralization?

Response 2.0: Duck and Cover!

We can do better than tornado sirens

Extensive reach, but targeted info; links to more information for those most affected

Response 2.0:Notification

USGS maintains earthquake notification site

Via xkcd.com:

Response 2.0: Getting out the message

Rapid, flexible, and available information

Redundancy: text, twitter via internet or phone

Response 2.0: Accuracy

Internet notoriously full of crap

Possible solution to create link to centralized data gathering and dissemination from official agency

Example: Create blog post that says, “Up to date info on current disaster available at...”

Recovery 2.0

Charity

Coordination of unconventional resources

Recovery 2.0

Haiti Rewired: Clearinghouse of blogposts, twitter-type updates, and contacts between people

My own blog network today is featuring the spill and discussion boards are discussing gathering experts.

Mitigation 2.0

Preparation of unconventional 2.0 networks?

Creation of robust networks

Asking for input as to risks, prevention strategies

“crowd-sourcing” prevention

brainstorming

Starting points: who's going to help?

Identify reliable blogs, and reliable facebook and twitter personae with whom to communicate

Identify goals: (your input please!)

Link to a common info site?

Dissemination of specific information?

An experiment

Single blog post and twitter update (“tweet”)

Within 12 hours

83 retweets

550 visits to blog post

165 visits from feedburner (prob. Twitter)

93 from facebook

Rest from other sources

In Sum

Opportunity to use interconnected, realtime networks to disseminate information

Hashtags and hashtag integrity

Twitter id's

DHS updates about 2x/wk...why bother following?

Updates have brief half-life

Need to avoid hijacking by other agendas

Creation of formal network? With “disaster response” badge?

Ongoing conversation online

My online contact info

Twitter @palmd

Facebook

Science-Based Medicine

White Coat Underground

Forbes Science Business Blog