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Can mobile phone data improve emergency response to natural disasters?

Can mobile phone data improve emergency response to natural disasters?
Can mobile phone data improve emergency response to natural disasters?
Disaster management requires accurate information and must link data collection and analysis to an immediate decision-making process. Existing approaches to assessing population movements in the immediate aftermath of disasters, such as transport surveys and manual registration of individuals at emergency-relief hubs, are often inadequate: while important for record-keeping purposes, both are slow and may exclude those groups who are unreachable and most vulnerable. Proxy analysis via aerial or even satellite reconnaissance has a potentially useful role, but can provide only a coarse geographical picture of moving populations. In practice, the most readily available sources of information are from eye-witness or media reports. Although timely, such reports are not accumulated systematically and can constitute a biased representation of events.

cellular phone utilization, demography, disasters, earthquakes, emergency medical service communication systems, haiti, humans
1549-1277
e1001085-[2pp]
Gething, P.W.
82a5722c-21cc-462c-bdaf-7af4d50a6219
Tatem, A.J.
6c6de104-a5f9-46e0-bb93-a1a7c980513e
Gething, P.W.
82a5722c-21cc-462c-bdaf-7af4d50a6219
Tatem, A.J.
6c6de104-a5f9-46e0-bb93-a1a7c980513e

Gething, P.W. and Tatem, A.J. (2011) Can mobile phone data improve emergency response to natural disasters? PLoS Medicine, 8 (8), e1001085-[2pp]. (doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001085). (PMID:21918644)

Record type: Article

Abstract

Disaster management requires accurate information and must link data collection and analysis to an immediate decision-making process. Existing approaches to assessing population movements in the immediate aftermath of disasters, such as transport surveys and manual registration of individuals at emergency-relief hubs, are often inadequate: while important for record-keeping purposes, both are slow and may exclude those groups who are unreachable and most vulnerable. Proxy analysis via aerial or even satellite reconnaissance has a potentially useful role, but can provide only a coarse geographical picture of moving populations. In practice, the most readily available sources of information are from eye-witness or media reports. Although timely, such reports are not accumulated systematically and can constitute a biased representation of events.

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More information

Published date: 30 August 2011
Keywords: cellular phone utilization, demography, disasters, earthquakes, emergency medical service communication systems, haiti, humans
Organisations: Geography & Environment, PHEW – S (Spatial analysis and modelling), Population, Health & Wellbeing (PHeW)

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 344415
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/344415
ISSN: 1549-1277
PURE UUID: 85953388-dbd4-41b1-bf35-72cf22d768ab
ORCID for A.J. Tatem: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-7270-941X

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 25 Oct 2012 09:12
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:43

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Contributors

Author: P.W. Gething
Author: A.J. Tatem ORCID iD

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