Medical Assistance and Crisis Mapping: Is the Hype Justified?

Popular data visualization tools and crisis mapping software are increasingly relied upon to better equip on-the-ground medical assistance in disaster emergencies. While there is certainly nothing new about using data analysis for monitoring and addressing such crises, the influence of online data analysis platforms in the last year has been striking. Following Japan’s seismic earthquake and tsunami in 2011, crisis mapping websites, particularly Sinsai.info, created using the open source software Ushahidi, came of age as a real time strategy to effectively mobilize resources and provide rapid-response information for disaster relief and humanitarian aid workers.

Crowdsourced data platforms like this — that aggregate location-specific water, shelter, and food needs via social media outlets, which are then plotted on a visual map — have been used in Haiti, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere to help medical relief and human rights workers make sense of changing situations and respond accordingly. While there are various approaches on how best to utilize these technologies (see IRIN News on the subject), it goes without saying that open access of these data streams is instrumental to its increasing effectiveness (for more on this, see Tim Berners-Lee TEDTalk).