Social Media Can 'Buoy' Disaster Preparedness and Response

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and foursquare may be important keys to improving the public health system's ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters, according to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine.

From earthquakes to oil spills and other industrial accidents to weather-related events like heat waves and flooding, the authors suggest that harnessing crowd-sourcing technologies and electronic communications tools will set the stage to handle emergencies in a quicker, more coordinated, more effective way.

Noting that more than 40 million Americans use social media websites multiple times a day, the researchers suggest that social media enables an unprecedented, two-way exchange between the public and public health professionals. Officials can "push" information to the public while simultaneously "pulling" in data from lay bystanders...