This site seeks to produce better information and reusable data on public health issues such as Chikungunya, Dengue and Ebola using Information Management (IM), GIS and Crowdsourcing techniques. When disease outbreaks occur, especially cross-border epidemics, current and accurate information would help the separate authorities and populations know what appropriate action needs to be taken when, to retard the crisis.

The provision of public health information could be improved if it were distributed as early as possible and as widely as possible. Good information management techniques, GIS analysis and visualisation, and the internet make it possible to achieve all of the above. The provision of public health information could be improved if the data that are the bases for such reports are also made available to citizens, journalists, and a wide variety of researchers. Such Open Data would help to better inform citizens about current or emerging diseases, and also allow innovative and non-traditional solutions to arise from different fields of expertise.  This website seeks to demonstrate this with projects.

These IM and GIS projects will utilise published data from relevant organisations e.g. PAHO/ WHO, authentic news reports and other online sources. Solutions/ methods using free or low-cost software for data processing, e.g. QGIS, and cloud services for storage and open distribution and communication, e.g. Google Fusion Tables and Google Maps will be preferred, and for now there will be a focus on Latin America & the Caribbean.

Regional sources of information include PAHO/WHO, CARPHA and CDC, though the information could be provided in ways that are easier to digest or re-use.

Data, maps, charts and other content on this site, unless stated otherwise, are free to download or reuse (under a Creative Commons by Attribution licence).