“Despite the invention of control measures such as vaccines, infectious diseases are still part of human existence. Ideas, feelings or information can also be contagious, “thus researcher Chris Bauch and his Canadian collaborators at the University of Waterloo introduce the subject of their latest study, entitled” Social factors in epidemiology. these scientists believe that certain markers of contagion by infectious diseases can be better understood by analyzing the mechanisms of social contagion that passes through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
According to them, the two epidemic processes go through the same mechanism: “Both are spread by a similar functioning, if each person transmits a message or a virus to another, the explosive power of exponential growth creates an epidemic”, affirm the authors of the study, published in the journal Science.
By studying this functioning, it would therefore be possible to better understand certain biological processes and prevent the spread of certain epidemics. “The systems in which the two types of contagion are associated with each other present a unique scientific challenge and are of increasing importance to public health,” add the Canadian researchers. Last year, the search engine Google had already tried the experiment by creating an alert network when the flu epidemic in the United States had reached worrying levels. The same principle has been adopted in France where the grippeNet website, developed by the National Institute of Health and Medical Research and by Pierre and Marie Curie University, relies on the voluntary, anonymous and voluntary participation of Internet users to assess the influenza situation in France.
