The role of citizenship as Early Warning Systems. Answers to this question.

Two post ago, I wrote about some topics we want to inquire in relation with our current research goal, that is, what would be the role of citizenship as Early Warning System, or, generally, in the biosurveillance realm. 

Through ResearchGate, two researches have contributed with their answers to this issue. Responses are quite interesting:

"Enrique,

Thanks for your excellent job of posing this question, and articulating many critical issues.  I will be following the discussion that I hope will ensue, and perhaps make some more comments of my own after seeing where the discussion goes.  It seems to me that this whole area has been inadequately defined and standardized.  I consider much of my work to be biosurveillance - looking for prevalence and distribution of pathogens in natural environments, primarily through the use of  sentinel organisms.  However, surveillance or biomonitoring (which term is best?) for vector  populations is also important.  I've attached a couple of relevant papers.  Best wishes, Bruce"

"Hi Enrique,

As you mentioned, the term ‚biosurveillance‘ is closely related to the term ‘bio-monitoring’, in which monitoring is less regular than one would expet it to be in a surveillance system. Originally, these terms were coined about 40 years ago, when environmental concerns grew because of the ever occurring industrial pollution. Standard books of the matter should give you an overview about the terms applied.

Are there tools where the citizen can contribute?

Usually, every citizen can forward his/her concern to the appropriate parties, the national or international bodies concerned with the issue. In the U.S. this is certainly the EPA.

A sentinel site is a reference site being used usually on a national base. Look at what the tropical docs say about sentinel sites for their research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_of_Travel_Medicine

wish you all the best with your endeavor,

good luck!"

In fact, I am very interested in the International Society of Travel Medicine work, as well as the kind of stuff that the Global Oubreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) is carrying out (I didn't know this site), and I am sure we can slide for this websites in order to know new things and to collect new material and documents. 

In any case, we need for information about it, so we hope you would like to help us with your point of view or source of information.

By our part, we are wondering if it is feasible that one role of citizenship within biosurveillance may be alert global institutions when he/she or a relative present unusual symptoms, uploading it to the web through a smartphone or pc; simply pressing a button... not only seeking help, but to act as a Early System for a potential outbreak for which is necessary take actions previously within the Preparedness logic of government.

Photo Credit: Flickr, User New York National Guard