Using Social Media for Actionable Disease Surveillance and Outbreak Management: A Systematic Literature Review.

Objective: Research studies show that social media may be valuable tools in the disease surveillance toolkit used for improving public health professionals' ability to detect disease outbreaks faster than traditional methods and to enhance outbreak response. A social media work group, consisting of surveillance practitioners, academic researchers, and other subject matter experts convened by the International Society for Disease Surveillance, conducted a systematic primary literature review using the PRISMA framework to identify research, published through February 2013, answering either of the following questions: Can social media be integrated into disease surveillance practice and outbreak management to support and improve public health?Can social media be used to effectively target populations, specifically vulnerable populations, to test an intervention and interact with a community to improve health outcomes?Examples of social media included are Facebook, MySpace, microblogs (e.g.

Hematologic parameters and hemoparasites of nonmigratory Canada geese (Branta canadensis) from Greensboro, North Carolina, USA.

Large flocks of wild, nonmigratory Canada geese (Branta canadensis) have established permanent residence throughout the eastern United States and have become a public concern. Few studies have assessed the hematologic parameters for these populations, which could provide useful information for monitoring individual and population health of Canada geese. This study measured the hematologic parameters and detected the presence of hemoparasites from 146 wild, nonmigratory Canada geese in central North Carolina, USA, during their annual molt.

Environmental and physiological factors contributing to outbreaks of cryptosporidium in Coquerel's sifaka (Propithecus coquereli) at the Duke Lemur Center: 1999-2007.

This population-based, retrospective study examined the susceptibility of a prosimian primate, Coquerel's sifaka (Propithecus coquereli), to Cryptosporidium spp. over a 9-yr period from 1999 to 2007 at the Duke Lemur Center (DLC) located in Durham, North Carolina. The investigation examined potential epidemiologic risk factors that could be correlated to infectious outbreaks at the center, such as prevalence, signalment (species, age, and sex), seasonality of occurrence, recurrence rate, family lineage, parturition, clinical signs, and concurrent diseases or health conditions.