Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Evaluating The Implementation Of A Twitter-Based Foodborne Illness Reporting Tool In The City Of St. Louis Department Of Health, Jenine Harris, Leslie Hinyard, Kate E. Beatty, Jared B. Hawkins, Elaine O. Nsoesie, Raed Mansour, John S. Brownstein

ETSU Faculty Works

Foodborne illness is a serious and preventable public health problem affecting 1 in 6 Americans with cost estimates over $50 billion annually. Local health departments license and inspect restaurants to ensure food safety and respond to reports of suspected foodborne illness. The City of St. Louis Department of Health adopted the HealthMap Foodborne Dashboard (Dashboard), a tool that monitors Twitter for tweets about food poisoning in a geographic area and allows the health department to respond. We evaluated the implementation by interviewing employees of the City of St. Louis Department of Health involved in food safety. We interviewed epidemiologists, environmental …