Infection tracking in travellers using a mobile app (ITIT): The pilot study.

Background: Current surveillance of travellers' health captures only a small proportion of illness events. We aimed to evaluate the usability and feasibility of using an app to enable travellers to self-report illness.

Method: This pilot study assesses a novel mobile application called Infection Tracking in Travellers (ITIT) that records travel-related symptoms with associated geolocation and weather data.

Travel behaviours and health outcomes during travel: Profiling destination-specific risks in a prospective mHealth cohort of Swiss travellers.

Background: We used a mobile application to determine the incidence of health events and risk behaviours during travel by country and identify which health risks are significantly elevated during travel compared with at home.

Method: TOURIST2 is a prospective cohort study of 1000 adult travellers from Switzerland to Thailand, India, China, Tanzania, Brazil and Peru, planning travel of ≤4 weeks between 09/2017 and 04/2019. The incidence rate ratio (IRR) in each country was calculated.

TOURIST2 - Tracking of urgent risks in swiss travellers to the 6 main travel destinations - Feasibility and ethical considerations of a smartphone application-based study.

Background: The adoption of mHealth technology in travel medicine is a relatively new and unexplored field. We have further developed a TRAVEL application (app) for real-time data monitoring during travel. In this manuscript we report on the feasibility using this new app in a large and diverse cohort of travellers to three continents.

Does the DOSPERT scale predict risk-taking behaviour during travel? A study using smartphones.

Background: Despite the continuing growth of international tourism, very little research has been done on the link between individual risk attitudes and health behaviours during travel. Our study uses a validated risk-taking questionnaire Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale (DOSPERT) and data from a smartphone application to study the association between pre-travel risk attitudes and the occurrence of behaviours during travel.

Methods: A prospective cohort of travellers to Thailand used a smartphone application to answer a daily questionnaire about health behaviours and events.

Streaming data from a smartphone application: A new approach to mapping health during travel.

Background: New research methods offer opportunities to investigate the influence of environment on health during travel. Our study uses data from a smartphone application to describe spatial and environmental patterns in health among travellers.

Methods: A prospective cohort of travellers to Thailand used a smartphone application during their trips to 1) answer a daily questionnaire about health behaviours and events, and 2) collect streaming data on environment, itinerary, and weather.

The quantified self during travel: mapping health in a prospective cohort of travellers.

Background: Travel medicine research has remained relatively unchanged in the face of rapid expansion of international travel and is unlikely to meet health challenges beyond infectious diseases. Our aim was to identify the range of health outcomes during travel using real-time monitoring and daily reporting of health behaviours and outcomes and identify traveller subgroups who may benefit from more targeted advice before and during travel.

Methods: We recruited a prospective cohort of travellers ≥ 18 years and planning travel to Thailand for <5 weeks from the travel clinics in Zurich and Basel (Switzerland).

Travel medicine and mHealth technology: a study using smartphones to collect health data during travel.

Background: mHealth methodology such as smartphone applications offers new opportunities to capture the full range of health risks during travel in real time. Our study aims to widen the scope of travel health research in tropical and subtropical destinations by using a smartphone application to collect detailed information on health behaviours, clinical symptoms, accidents and environmental factors during travel.

Methods: We enrolled travel clinic clients in Zurich and Basel ≥18 years of age travelling to Thailand for <5 weeks.

Saving Human Lives: What Complexity Science and Information Systems can Contribute.

We discuss models and data of crowd disasters, crime, terrorism, war and disease spreading to show that conventional recipes, such as deterrence strategies, are often not effective and sufficient to contain them. Many common approaches do not provide a good picture of the actual system behavior, because they neglect feedback loops, instabilities and cascade effects. The complex and often counter-intuitive behavior of social systems and their macro-level collective dynamics can be better understood by means of complexity science.