Abstract
Social media presents publicly available and accessible information about individual, real-time activity that can be leveraged to detect, monitor, and respond to events. We are developing a cloud-based Open Source Health Intelligence (OSHINT) system that uses open source media outlets to characterize foodborne illness events in real-time. OSHINT forecasts response requirements for efficient use of resources. OSHINT currently characterizes number of victims ill, hospitalized, and dead due to foodborne illness events and was used to characterize the national 2012 Salmonella event related to cantaloupes. The OSHINT team is continually developing and refining characterization and forecasting algorithms.