With social media gaining traction since SARS (2003) and Avian H5N1 (2006), it will be interesting to see what role it might now play as a media tool in the current pandemic du jour.  The benefits of social media are clear, namely speed of communication, and monitoring sentiment.  The cost in accuracy is not insignficant, and it will be simply a matter of how to best use it.  Can new micro media services like twitter add anything useful? Will good information float well enough above the bad to make it worthwhile keeping track of?

I don’t think the question is whether people should, its a question of how they should. Twitter is just an open conversation tool, and people will use it to talk about issues important to them, and if swineflu/H1N1 does take hold, it will become one of those issues.

Access and distribute reliable information. Thankfully, several streams of information are available from official government and international agencies. (WHO -website & twitter CDC – Website, Twitter, Email).  The higher the official signal to unofficial noise, the better.  You could argue that it is often slower and more deliberate than other sources, but they have significant cost/benefit analyses to make with each official release.  Partially uncertain information is occasionally communicated, but only after due consideration.

Focus on facts and confirmed cases. Real numbers are much less than that reported in the media. If somebody publishes something without a link to either official or reliable press (eg. AFP) sources and you’re still interested, try looking for a pattern of multiple first hand accounts rather than a chain of retweets. Specifically with the current H1N1 Swineflu outbreak, “suspected” cases can be very misleading.  Once an “area” (eg. often a city) has a single laboratory confirmed case, everybody who presents to the emergency department, or general practitioner, with at least two of 1) runny nose or nasal congestion, 2) sore throat, 3) cough, 4) fever or feverishness gets labelled as a “suspected case”. This is all in the CDC case definition here.  You can imagine the number of patients with otherwise innocuous colds that come through like this everyday, let alone when the population is on heightened alert.

The next bit of information of interest to most people will be a change in the global pandemic alert phase which can be found here. For Australians, the federal government has a website up at http://www.flupandemic.gov.au/ with some information on pandemic preparedness with links to each state health departments. Its not the best, but at least its something local for both clinicians and the public.

The best source of CONFIRMED US cases are to be found here http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/

Below is an unofficial map from http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/ of human cases of H1N1 infection.

Know of any good, reliable sources of information people might find useful?

1. Medical conditions. You mention a medical condition you forget to tell your health insurance company about, and the day you come to make a claim, any accidently withheld conditions might void it. Is the answer to never mention them? No, but make sure that anything you do mention, you have notified your insurance company about in advance of the claim. This includes depression. What you type now will be easily found my insurance companies in 30 years time.

2. Reputation. The aggregate of your public dialogue is your personal brand. For many people who make their living from social media, contoversy is nothing but an opportunity for expanding your brand awareness. As twitter turns the corner into the mainstream though, people relying on their professional careers, might find themselves hamstrung by things they have said. I’m not suggesting people live in fear, but it will take a while before the honest, open dialogue in social media is appreciated by every potential employer.

3. Legal implications. If content can be linked to you, consider any legal implications of your dialogue. Its early days yet, and legislation is yet to catch up with new forms of social media. Hopefully we will bear witness to a new frontier of free speech, but defamation laws may adapt in one form or another. Courts are already making a foray into the world of social networks (see Subpoena served by Facebook), recognising the relationship between an individual and their online presence.

As much as I hate to say it, if you’re new to social media, take it slow at the beginning. Consider the consequences of everything you type. I’m not meaning to throw a wet blanket over something we all know is phenomenally valuable, but its in your own best interest to take your time getting used to it. These are things you can never take back.

Does that mean the dialogue is less honest than it would otherwise would be? Yes, of course. We’re moving through an early phase of a single stream of open dialogue, to the next phase of permission-based online dialogue where information you share is only available to groups you nominate. Existing social networks don’t currently do this beyond classifying people as “friend” or “not friend”, but they will soon.

There will always be a thriving open dialogue, and hopefully, with this, a greater sense of openness about our personal thoughts and feelings. Information about you is valuable, and I’d encourage you to share with the world, in a thoughtful way. Its the many-to-many exchange of information that has made the web what it is, and it is yet to take us places we can’t imagine.