Why the Internet is (sometimes) better than the real-world for medical research

As people spend ever more time online, they produce content from which medical information can be gleaned. Such content can be used to generate new medical knowledge, and I will share examples from public health, post-marketing drug safety, and others.

In some respects, this new source of information is superior to traditional medical information collection tools, enabling an unbiased understanding derived from large cohorts of people during normal times as well as in times of medical emergencies. Moreover, this data could provide unprecedented insights into how behavioral, environmental, and social traits influence people's medical conditions.

Speaker: Elad Yom-Tov, Senior Research Scientist, Yahoo! Research