New stuff.....

So, now I'm interested in finding a relationship between invention of certain kinds of mass travel and serious disease outbreaks. It's looking like this could be pretty difficult to find today, so I'll just write about what I am finding. I've found a cool website that details inventions in travel from wheeled carts in 3500 BC to the first jumbo jet in 1970 (crazy to think that this wasn't even 40 years ago!) http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_history_of_transportation.htm. I also found a good website that provides a detailed description of various infectious diseases from anthrax to typhus. It provides information on the origination of the disease, means of spread, effects on the human body, and a historic profile . This may be helpful in my research, but I doubt it will be what I need to show the relationship that I would like to show.

If I am not successful in showing this relationship by the end of the week then I will most likely look into existing research to make the correlation for me. Up to this point my research has been 100 % web-based (not sure I should admit that, but I have a feeling I'm not alone!). I'll be hitting off the library soon to research the history of diseases and hopefully find a timeline that shows outbreaks in different parts of the world. I can find timelines online, but they are usually specific to a particular disease. maybe then I should pick a couple of specific diseases and detail their spread along with advances in transportation that affected the same geographic area in the same time frame? I guess I should explore this a bit. I don't need a detailed history of all infectious disease spread in order to show correlation, a small sample would do that fine.

So, then I need to pick specific diseases to track. I would probably want to avoid diseases like AIDS that are only transmittable through close intimate contact of specific sorts and instead focus on diseases like TB or SARS that are easily transmitted through the air or through casual contact. SARS would probably be a good example since the outbreak was recent and there was a huge concern over air travel and in spreading the disease across the world. A disease like SARS wouldn't have had such a serious impact on the entire world without air travel. Today I also found more recent episodes of large scale fear related to diseases entering the US with impoverished immigrants (http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=422).

So now I'm thinking about bird flu. Although human migration doesn't play a large role in spreading this disease, bird migration plays a huge role! So, now I’m feeling a bit lost again. I wish I had more time to research today, but my son has other things in mind and he always wins this battle! But here are a couple of questions to answer:
What makes certain populations vulnerable to infectious diseases? I learned today that there have been 3 influenza pandemics in the US in the 20th century. Each time it was caused by genetic mutation of the flu various to a form that left a huge amount of the population extremely vulnerable since they had never before been exposed in order to develop immunity (http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/report/2004/hsc-planning-scenarios-jul04_03.htm). This is usually the case in widespread pandemics… they are so deadly b/c the population’s immune system is not capable of handling the disease.
The website above references homeland security which would probably be a good resource for me to see what existing scenarios are in place to predict and prevent disease spread across populations.

New Direction in my Research

So, as I'm putting the final touches on my outline that's due TOMORROW I realize that I want to take my research in another direction... not a completely different direction, but different enough that I don't have time to do the research and writing necessary to modify my current outline. So, the outline will mostly reflect the same ideas that I've already expressed here with a few additions and in a different format, but the next iteration will focus on:

HOW DOES HUMAN MIGRATION AFFECT DISEASE SPREAD?

When I really got down to it, focusing on commuting patterns in the US and the diseases that are spread that way we're really mostly dealing with colds and the flu and stuff like that. You're not very likely to catch a life-threatening disease from someone on your bus on the way to work or from someone in the cubicle next to yours. The thing about studying a certain population and disease is that rarely are new diseases introduced that cause a real need for concern. Bio Terrorism is a real threat, but I'm tired of hearing about terrorism and I'm much less interested in doing a project on it. However, if you look at human travel in a much larger scale (migration in history) you can find all sorts of instances where susceptible populations are introduced to diseases that have very serious consequences. Today I found a "History of Transportation Timeline" that goes all the way back to 3500 BC with the invention of the fixed-wheel cart (http://inventors.about.com/od/wstartinventions/a/wheel.htm). As transportation became easier, faster, and more available people who were once relatively isolated became mobile. They began to venture farther and farther from their homes and with them they carried all sorts of diseases, eventually introducing them to populations and ecosystems that had never been exposed.

In the end I think I can show a correlation between emergence of particular diseases and mass migration of one group or another that likely introduced the diseases. Depending on how long this project needs to be I can also look ahead and introduce the idea of GIS aiding in creating models for potential disease spread. I feel much better looking ahead at this research than I do continuing with where I'm currently headed.

Commuting Patterns and Infectious Disease Transmission

While modern medicine has reduced the frequency and severity of most common infectious diseases, increased human mobility has made it possible for these diseases to spread wider distances very rapidly. Carriers of infectious disease who travel significant distances from home are likely to spread the disease to others they come in contact with. Likewise, these secondary contacts are likely to travel some distance and then come into contact with others, potentially spreading the disease far from its origin. Without insight as to where these individuals are likely to travel officials are not likely to mount a very effective counter against further spread of the disease. In cases of highly contagious infective diseases that carry serious adverse health risks it is of the utmost importance that officials are able to determine where the carrier(s) of a disease travelled while infected, who they came into contact with, and where those contacts travelled, etc...

Recent research has shown that the majority of travel in the U.S. originates from either home or the workplace. U.S. Census data shows that more than 128 million Americans have jobs and 97% of those jobs are outside of the worker's residence meaning they commute to work multiple days every week. Some commutes are relatively short while others span large distances. While the majority of work commutes fall in the range of 15 to 29 minutes, nearly 27% are 30 - 59 minutes and another 8% are an hour or more. Studying the geographic commuting patterns of Americans gives researchers good insight into possible spread patterns of infectious diseases and allows for a prompt intervention from authorities to minimize affects of disease.

I'm still interested in researching commuting using past census data to compare and see if we are commuting farther to work today than in the past. I also want to talk to researchers who are involved in a national study on models of infectious disease aimed at improving national communication and response when it comes to infectious disease out brakes.

After 20 minutes researching...

I just spent 20 minutes researching two questions
1. How are communicable diseases spread and
2. How are commuting patterns studied

I found a lot of sources for #1 and it basically looks like the diseases are simply spread through contact. I did find a lot of other information that categorized diseases in terms of their lethality, ability to be treated, how quickly and easily they spread, etc... I think some of this information could be helpful in explaining the importance of predicting where a quickly spreading disease may be spreading next.

I didn't so much related information for #2. Instead I found very detailed reports that provided information on how patterns have changed. I think that sifting trough the information to reveal the method used for researching commuting patterns will take more than 20 minutes.

I feel pretty stuck with my subject and overwhelmed with the amount of information to look through.

Disease Spread Related to Commuting Patterns

Can Studying Commuting Patterns Help Prevent the Spread of Communicable Diseases?

1. How does population movement affect the spread of communicable disease?

• How do communicable diseases most often spread?
• How are commuting patterns generally studied?

Kuhlthau and ISP

This article was a bit overwhelming at first, but I felt pretty comfortable with its contents by the end. And so goes the information search process (ISP). I found lots of great points in the article and by the end I was feeling pretty confident in my current state of research...l which is definitely at the early stages of confusion. I'm not so confused about the topic itself, but I don't have a very clear picture of how my research will be presented in the end or what form my project will take. I was relieved in reading Belkin's idea the information need is "The gap between the user's knowledge about the problem or topic and what the user user needs to know to solve the problem" and that that gap is large in the early stages of research and progressively smaller as the research continues. That means that my current concerns, lack of knowledge, and large information gap put me right on track to completing a super A+ research project!

I really could relate to the idea that confidence increases with focus and how the two relate throughout the ISP process at initiation, midpoint, and closure.

This introduction to information from a scholarly perspective is really interesting to me. I was expecting a lot of database management and web design in info science, but I never considered such a wide scale evaluation of the research process to be a part of the curriculum.