Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Jan 27;19(3):1410.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19031410.

Covidseeker: A Geospatial Temporal Surveillance Tool

Yulin Hswen  1   2 , Elad Yom-Tov  3 , Vaidhy Murti  4 , Nicholas Narsing  4 , Siona Prasad  5 , George W Rutherford  1 , Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo  1
Affiliations
Review

Covidseeker: A Geospatial Temporal Surveillance Tool

Yulin Hswen et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Introduction: Geospatial temporal data derived from smartphones traditionally used for purposes of navigation may offer valuable information for public health surveillance and locational hot spotting. Our objective was to develop a web-based application, called Covidseeker, that captures continuous fine-grained geospatial temporal data from smartphones and leverages these data to study transmission patterns of COVID-19.

Methods: This report describes the development of Covidseeker and the process by which it utilizes geospatial temporal data from smartphones and processes it into a usable format to study geospatial temporal patterns of COVID-19. We provide an overview of the design process, the principles, the software architecture, and the dashboard of the Covidseeker application and consider key challenges and strategic uses of capturing geospatial temporal data and the potential for future applications in outbreak surveillance.

Results: A resource such as Covidseeker can support situational awareness by providing information about the location and timing of transmission of diseases such as COVID-19. Geospatial temporal data housed in smartphones hold tremendous potential to capture more depth about where and when transmission occurs and the patterns of human mobility that lead to increases in risk of COVID-19.

Conclusion: An enormous and highly rich source of geospatial temporal information about human mobility can be used to provide highly localized discrete information that is difficult to capture by traditional sources. The architecture of Covidseeker can be applied to help track COVID-19 and should be integrated with traditional disease surveillance practices.

Keywords: COVID-19; contact tracing; coronavirus; digital applications; geospatial tracking; human mobility; public surveillance.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Covidseeker donation platform.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Dashboard of Covidseeker.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Christaki E. New technologies in predicting, preventing and controlling emerging infectious diseases. Virulence. 2015;6:558–565. doi: 10.1080/21505594.2015.1040975. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nomura S., Yoneoka D., Shi S., Tanoue Y., Kawashima T., Eguchi A., Matsuura K., Makiyama K., Ejima K., Taniguchi T., et al. An assessment of self-reported COVID-19 related symptoms of 227,898 users of a social networking service in Japan: Has the regional risk changed after the declaration of the state of emergency? Lancet Reg. Health-West. Pac. 2020;1:100011. doi: 10.1016/j.lanwpc.2020.100011. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chang S., Pierson E., Koh P.W., Gerardin J., Redbird B., Grusky D., Leskovec J. Mobility network models of COVID-19 explain inequities and inform reopening. Nature. 2021;589:82–87. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2923-3. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Leith D.J., Farrell S. Measurement-based evaluation of google/apple exposure notification API for proximity detection in a commuter bus. PLoS ONE. 2021;16:e0250826. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250826. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Perlroth N. How Spy Tech Firms Let Governments See Everything on a Smartphone. The New York Times Company; New York, NY, USA: 2016.

Publication types