Vaccination rates are falling in many communities due to widespread misinformation and previously eliminated or controlled illnesses like measles are surging across the United States and Canada.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a new approach that could help public health officials predict where outbreaks might occur. By analyzing social media posts, the method identifies early signs of increasing vaccine skepticism — a warning signal that could emerge before any disease begins to spread.
“In nature, we have contagious systems like diseases,” said Dr. Chris Bauch, professor of Applied Mathematics at Waterloo. “We decided to look at social dynamics like an ecological system and studied how misinformation can spread contagiously from user to user through a social media network.”
Read the full story from Waterloo News to learn more.