How Data Can Fight Foodborne Diseases

Every year, one in six Americans—48 million individuals—get sick from contaminated food. Over the past few years, public health officials have worked diligently to use data to quickly identify and track outbreaks of foodborne disease and alert consumers. In particular, with many instances of food poisoning originating in restaurants, cities around the country have begun publishing restaurant health inspection scores as open data so local business review websites like Yelp can integrate this data into their apps and get the information into the hands of users. Public health officials also are beginning to use data culled from social media to identify likely hotspots of foodborne illness and prioritize inspections accordingly.

Join the Center for Data Innovation for a panel discussion about how technology experts and government leaders are marshaling open data to improve food safety and how civic tech applications can help address more of these types of public health concerns in the future.