Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Oct 15, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 14, 2021 - Oct 22, 2021
Date Accepted: Nov 21, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: Dec 16, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
How Technologists and Health Experts are Co-creating Optimal Solutions for Disease Prevention and Control
ABSTRACT
Background:
Technology-based innovations created collaboratively by local technology specialists and health experts can optimize addressing the priority needs for disease prevention and control. An EpiHack is a distinct, collaborative approach to develop such solutions combining the science of epidemiology with the format of a hackathon. Since 2013, twelve EpiHacks have collectively brought together over 500 technology and health professionals from 29 countries.
Objective:
To define the EpiHack process and summarize the impacts of the technology-based innovations created through this approach.
Methods:
The key components and timeline of an EpiHack are described in detail. The focus areas, outputs, and impacts of the twelve EpiHacks conducted between 2013 and 2021are summarized
Results:
EpiHacks solutions include improved surveillance for influenza, dengue, mass gatherings, laboratory sample tracking, and One Health surveillance in rural and urban communities. Several EpiHack tools have scaled during COVID-19 to support local governments for active surveillance. All tools were designed as open source to allow for easy replication and adaptation by other governments or parties.
Conclusions:
EpiHacks provide an efficient, flexible, and replicable new approach to generate relevant and timely innovations that are locally developed, owned, scalable and sustainable. Clinical Trial: None
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.