The technology you use to talk to friends and loved ones, listen to music, play games, etc. was used to map the swine flu outbreak in 2009 by both individuals and clinicians.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston have created an iPhone application called Outbreaks Near Me. Clark Freifeld, a Ph.D. Student at MIT Media Medicine Group, and John Brownstein, a epidemiologist as Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital in Boston, co-founded HealthMap in 2006.

Outbreaks Near Me is the iPhone counterpart to HealthMap. HealthMap is a free online service supported by Google that collects data from the internet, such as news reports, personal accounts, official alerts, blogs, and chat rooms in order to map outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as H1N1. About 10,000 people visit the site every day. Visits to the site include people who work for the World Health Organization, the CDC, and the European Centre for Disease prevention and control.

Both Freifeld and Brownstein worked with researchers in Boston to develop the iPhone application. This application allows both patients and clinicians who see unusual cases of illness popping up to submit a simple report using their iPhone. Photos that show the outbreak or situations that may lead to an outbreak can be submitted to HealthMap to be reviewed and possibly posted on a worldwide map as part of an alert system.

By having so many groups and individuals submitting information, this makes cooperation among health organizations easier and may increase identification of outbreaks earlier.

Outbreaks appear to result in increased traffic, as was observed when the swine flu peaked in March of 2009. About 150, 000 visitors came to site looking for information on the spread of the outbreak.