Issue link: https://geospatial.trimble.com/en/resources/i/1415423
and personal sensors (like Fitbits) to advance the science of public health (especially in the context of 'smart healthy cities') and potentially precision medicine, creating opportunities to comprehen- sively answer questions tackled in these fields as well as opportunities to answer new, emerging questions, explains International Journal of Health Geographics. Deep Learning algorithms can be applied to Twier data to detect disease outbreaks and then to build up and display information, including relevant news articles, to provide situational awareness. In the US, this has demonstrated an ability to detect symptoms for influenza-like illness, which were then confirmed from the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR). ere is further research onto improve on this surveillance system to incorporate disease-specific information (e.g., mode of transmission) to enhance disease forecasting accuracy. For COVID-19 response too, AI-powered data analytics can be used to pull insights from online behavior such as Internet search queries and social media conversations to identify signals from a spe- cific population in a particular location. An inter- esting example of this is how Boston Children's Hospital used an automated HealthMap system that scans online news and social media reports for early warning signs of outbreaks. is initial alert spurred more detailed reports from other agencies, including a warning from the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMed), a well-known volunteer-led organization, just half an hour aer the first warning. HealthMap brings together disparate data sources, including online news aggregators, eyewitness reports, etc., which keeps on updating 24/7, with an automated process, monitoring, organizing, integrating and visualizing online information about emerging diseases, facilitating early detection of global public health threats. In Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) as well as the Department of National Defence is using BlueDot's Insights soware to track and assess risk from global and domestic infectious disease outbreaks, including COVID-19. BlueDot's GeoDS Lab at University of Wisconsin, Madison used Country-to-US Counties flow data om March 2019 to show thousands of trips generated in the US. e team modeled this data back in March 2020 to predict a rapid growth of infection cases across the US Spring travels om China and Japan in March 2019 Spring travels om China and Japan in March 2019 zoomed in www.geospatialworld.net | May-June 2020 37 For COVID-19 response, AI-powered data analy cs can be used to pull insights from online behavior such as Internet search queries and social media conversa ons to iden fy signals in a par cular loca on