Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Big Brother is Watching You and Helping Health Officials in Disasters

While technology continues to become more sophisticated, prices of "lower tech" items continues to fall.  Cell phones, once the size of a brick and something you could use only to make a phone call, are now light as a feather and allow you to have unlimited information at your fingertips.  Over the past decade more and more citizens of developing countries are able to afford a cell phone and purchase minutes as their budgets allow.  One benefit to new populations having this technology, thanks to a SIM card, is that cell phone companies can see in real time where their users are or where they have been over the past few days.

After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, cell phone companies gave the government and NGOs crucial information which allowed emergency disaster groups to see where people were relocating. This real time information allowed resources to be distributed efficiently and helped to insure that medical/feeding/shelter was being placed where the need is greatest. It was also helpful in tracking disease patterns. Pictures like the one below gives emergency disaster workers insight into where people are moving as cholera starts to spread in the capital.







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