Health-related geospatial data and social media: Can you Harvest geosocial data?

Several social media tools and resources are applied to geographic information system (GIS) to help, mediate, and gather health-related data on the web. The sites Data.gov, http://www.data.gov/catalog, and Health Data.gov http://www.data.gov/health both contain geospatial datasets for health-related issues. Another site is the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System's interactive mapping portal found at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website, http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/gisbrfss/default.aspx that has links to download data files separately or to display as part of their mapping portal. The World Health Organizations (WHO's) Public Health Mapping and GIS Web page is a site where data can be viewed and downloaded, http://www.who.int/health mapping/en/. The HealthMapper application is a WHO-specific software tool that must be downloaded before any of its data and maps can be used. Facebook offers a portal environment that provides access to sites like Healthmap to its friends that want to be kept up-to-date with health-related issues in a GIS framework.