DHS’s National Biosurveillance Integration Center has issued a request for information for the purpose of improving its connection to relevant databases that would “improve its capability for biothreat awareness, detection, and information sharing to respond to incidents that may cascade into a nationally significant event.” The threats named in the report include bioterrorism attacks, disease outbreaks, and environmental catastrophes. The data that would support information on these events include medical intervention data, food safety data, travel data, and even wildlife health. By tapping into all of these databases, a centralized system would be able to track, map, and predict national patterns and outbreaks. With enough data across sources and sectors, such a project could even work to generate predictive algorithms.
Source: DHS Needs More Data to Help Stop Bioterrorism – Nextgov