A study by Pelat et al. (2009) illustrated that searches for gastroenteritis were significantly
correlated with incidence of acute diarrhea from the French Sentinel Network. Other studies leveraging data from social media (such as Twitter) have been able to track reports of foodborne illnesses and identify clusters suggesting outbreaks (Ordun et al., 2013 and Sadilek et al., 2013). Most individuals who experience foodborne illnesses do not seek medical care but might be willing to share their experiences using social media platforms. By harnessing the data available through these novel sources, automated data mining processes can be developed for identifying and monitoring reports of foodborne illness and disease outbreaks. Continuous monitoring, rapid detection, and investigation of foodborne disease outbreaks are crucial for limiting the spread of contaminated food products selleck kinase inhibitor and for
preventing reoccurrence by prompting changes in food production and delivery systems. The authors of this paper report no financial disclosures. The funding source had no role in the design and analysis of the study, and selleck writing of the manuscript. The authors declare no conflict of interest. This work is supported by a research grant from the National Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health (5R01LM010812-03). “
“Men are known to have a shorter life expectancy and higher mortality compared to women (Lynch, 2013, Wang et al., 2013, White and Holmes, 2006 and White et al., 2014). This could be attributed to men indulging in higher risk-taking behaviors, reluctance to seek help for prevention and during illness and the lack of male-focused oxyclozanide health system (Addis and Mahalik,
2003, Byrnes et al., 1999, Cordier and Wilson, 2013, Lynch, 2013, Tan et al., 2007 and White and Holmes, 2006). In addition, men’s health reports from Australia, Canada and Europe found significant variations in men’s health status within and across different countries (AIHW, 2013, Bilsker et al., 2010 and EC, 2011), which could be due to the differences in genetic as well as socio-economic factors. (Ncin and Cancer Research Uk, 2009 and White et al., 2011). Asia is rapidly developing both economically and socially. In recent years, more Asian countries are achieving a higher bracket in terms of socioeconomic status, and many are adopting a lifestyle similar to western countries (Tong et al., 2011 and Wassener, 2013). However, communicable and non-communicable diseases are on the rise in Asia (Wassener, 2013). While people from higher-income countries are achieving better health status, countries from the middle- and lower-income group continue to face higher disease burden, possibly attributed to financial constraints (Orach, 2009 and WHO, 2000).