Feeling Sick today? Heard something was “going around”?

We’ll these 2 companies are making it easy for all of us to instantly see on a local map what’s “going around” use from an illness perspective (viruses, allergies, etc.).  This can help us avoid or diagnose the illness quicker and get on with our daily lives.

Data Scientists using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and various Machine Learning methods on tweets, posts, etc. from millions of people on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere, these 2 companies capture and display visually on map what’s happening.

The first one I looked at was GermTrax, which tracks the spread of disease on personal, local, and global scales. 

Click on Images to Explore

http://www.germtrax.com/Map.aspx

http://www.germtrax.com/Log-Sickness.aspx

The next company is Sickweather – Sickness Forecasting & Mapping  (Mobile App / Email Alert)

Everyday thousands of people around the globe update social media sites like Facebook and Twitter when they (or someone close to them) get sick. Just as Doppler radar scans the skies for indicators of bad weather, Sickweather scans social networks for indicators of illness, allowing you to check for the chance of sickness as easily as you can check for the chance of rain.
See How Sickweather works