Mobile Technology to Track Illness

“Virtually everyone has a cell phone these days, and so many apps can determine your location and the location of people with identical apps,” Aiello says. “Why not use this technology to track interactions and better understand how people get sick? We can use data based on people’s interactions with friends and acquaintances to determine how to prevent transmission in their social networks.”

The idea is a natural extension of Allison Aiello’s general research interests. A professor of epidemiology, she has spent much of her career tracking linkages to infection in community settings and examining how to prevent or track outbreaks and disease blooms.

“We want to take these ideas to the next level,” she says. “We are working with engineers to collect more finely measured interaction data through small, wearable sensors. Someday, this will allow us to recognize when a participant coughs or sneezes, and we’ll be able to send these data to smartphones for continuous data collection.”

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