Wouldn’t you like to know if there is something going around your neighborhood? When your kid swears their stomach is upset and they don’t feel like going to school, it would be nice to know if there is a virus impacting other kids. If the flu has hit your city, it would be nice to know so you can keep away from the places that are hard hit. Here are three apps that can help you keep track of this information.
Sickweather – Everyday thousands of people around the globe update social media sites like Facebook and Twitter when they (or someone close to them) get sick. Just as Doppler radar scans the skies for indicators of bad weather, Sickweather scans social networks for indicators of illness, allowing you to check for the chance of sickness as easily as you can check for the chance of rain.
This is a fairly new app, so we don’t know if there are any big problems. We found it simple to use and since anyone using the app can report a variety of sicknesses, it is more than just a distant source, but an actual person who says, “I’ve got this.” It also sends a message when someone near you posts a sickness.
HealthyDay – FREE – If you’re wondering if what you’re feeling is a cold, the flu or pesky allergies, search no more. Using a patent-pending algorithm, HEALTHYDAY gathers data from the same trusted sources that doctors and hospitals use. It then cross-references information with local, crowd-sourced data to determine what’s trending nearby.
Now you see if other people in your neighborhood are sick, and what they have. Then when you’re feeling great, it lets you see what’s going around and sends real–time alerts to help know what to watch out for. The three major illnesses they track are flu, cold, and allergies. You can see the levels on the front page of this app.
FluTracker – FREE – This app is super basic and has some bad reviews. However, if you just want a quick way to check the weekly flu summary, directly from the CDC, this is your app. It is basically the Weekly US Map, as published by the CDC. Additional features are an RSS Influenza newsfeed, information about flu season, symptoms, and high risk groups. Finally the CDC Handwashing song lyrics are included.
