Crowdsourced Health

Most of us have gone online to search for information about health. What are the symptoms of a migraine? How effective is this drug? Where can I find more resources for cancer patients? Could I have an STD? Am I fat? A Pew survey reports more than 80 percent of American Internet users have logged on to ask questions like these.

This book offers the latest research results in recent development on the principles, techniques and applications in mobile crowdsourcing. It presents state-of-the-art content and provides an in-depth overview of the basic background in this related field. Crowdsourcing involves a large crowd of participants working together to contribute or produce goods and services for the society. The early 21st century applications of crowdsourcing can be called crowdsourcing 1.0, which includes businesses using crowdsourcing to accomplish various tasks, such as the ability to offload peak demand, access cheap labor, generate better results in a timely matter, and reach a wider array of talent outside the organization. Mobile crowdsensing can be described as an extension of crowdsourcing to the mobile network to combine the idea of crowdsourcing with the sensing capacity of mobile devices. As a promising paradigm for completing complex sensing and computation tasks, mobile crowdsensing serves the vital purpose of exploiting the ubiquitous smart devices carried by mobile users to make conscious or unconscious collaboration through mobile networks. Considering that we are in the era of mobile internet, mobile crowdsensing is developing rapidly and has great advantages in deployment and maintenance, sensing range and granularity, reusability, and other aspects. Due to the benefits of using mobile crowdsensing, many emergent applications are now available for individuals, business enterprises, and governments. In addition, many new techniques have been developed and are being adopted. This book will be of value to researchers and students targeting this topic as a reference book. Practitioners, government officials, business organizations and even customers -- working, participating or those interested in fields related to crowdsourcing will also want to purchase this book.

Crowdsourcing is a means by which public interest is sought and leveraged to achieve specific goals, and this fascinating study highlights how the model has been used to challenge the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The book investigates what factors have encouraged the use of crowdsourcing during the pandemic, as well as those issues which have restricted its use. It is illustrated with four detailed case studies, covering the fields of education and health, demonstrating how crowdsourcing as a means of crisis management has, ultimately, been used to influence and develop public policy. A timely analysis of this emerging concept, the book will appeal to researchers and practitioners across health and social care, public policy and management, and the voluntary sector more generally.

This book focuses on the different aspects of handling big data in healthcare. It showcases the current state-of-the-art technology used for storing health records and health data models. It also focuses on the research challenges in big data acquisition, storage, management and analysis.

Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management (Health EDRM) has recently emerged as a critical field for research, policy, and practice as a result of the growing recognition of health as a core dimension in disaster risk management. Global frameworks such as the WHO 13th General Programme of Work (GPW13), the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the International Health Regulations (IHR) have goals, targets, and indicators that monitor the health impact of disasters and emergencies and resilience in health systems and communities. Policies and actions guided by the best possible evidence are therefore critical for managing the health risks of emergencies and disasters. However, the evidence base in Health EDRM is very limited, reflecting the overall lack of research in this area. To address this gap, the WHO set out to develop a reference book about methods to guide Health EDRM research in collaboration with global experts. This book provides concrete guidance across a wide range of research, taking a systematic approach to discuss the type of research that is needed to generate relevant evidence for managing risks and consequences of emergencies and disasters. This research includes observational and experimental studies, and those that use qualitative or quantitative data, or both. When using the book, readers are encouraged to take account of the specific setting of the health risks of any emergency or disaster, including national capacities and the impacts that are directly and indirectly health-related.

An eye-opening investigation into charitable crowdfunding for healthcare in the United States—and the consequences of allowing health care access to be decided by the digital crowd. Over the past decade, charitable crowdfunding has exploded in popularity across the globe. Sites such as GoFundMe, which now boasts a “global community of over 100 million” users, have transformed the ways we seek and offer help. When faced with crises—especially medical ones—Americans are turning to online platforms that promise to connect them to the charity of the crowd. What does this new phenomenon reveal about the changing ways we seek and provide healthcare? In Crowded Out, Nora Kenworthy examines how charitable crowdfunding so quickly overtook public life, where it is taking us, and who gets left behind by this new platformed economy. Although crowdfunding has become ubiquitous in our lives, it is often misunderstood: rather than a friendly free market “powered by the kindness” of strangers, crowdfunding is powerfully reinforcing inequalities and changing the way Americans think about and access healthcare. Drawing on extensive research and rich storytelling, Crowded Out demonstrates how crowdfunding for health is fueled by—and further reinforces—financial and moral “toxicities” in market-based healthcare systems. It offers a unique and distressing look beneath the surface of some of the most popular charitable platforms and helps to foster thoughtful discussions of how we can better respond to healthcare crises both small and large.

With the growth of information technology, many new communication channels and platforms have emerged. This growth has advanced the work of crowdsourcing, allowing individuals and companies in various industries to coordinate efforts on different levels and in different areas. Providing new and unique sources of knowledge outside organizations enables innovation and shapes competitive advantage. Crowdsourcing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of crowdsourcing in business operations and management, science, healthcare, education, and politics. Highlighting a range of topics such as crowd computing, macrotasking, and observational crowdsourcing, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for business executives, professionals, policymakers, academicians, and researchers interested in all aspects of crowdsourcing.

Health and illness in the Neoliberal Era in Europe discusses the impact of neoliberalism on public health and the social construction of health and illness in Europe, analysing case studies at a European and national level.