John Brownstein
Born
John S. Brownstein

Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Alma materMcGill University
AwardsPresidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, 2010
Scientific career
FieldsEpidemiology Informatics
InstitutionsHarvard Medical School Boston Children’s Hospital
Websitecompepi.org

John Brownstein is a Canadian epidemiologist and Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School[1] as well as the Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital.[2][3] His research focuses on development of computational methods in epidemiology for applications to public health also known as computational epidemiology or e-epidemiology[4] He is also the founder of several global public health surveillance systems including HealthMap. He is most known for his work on global tracking of disease outbreaks.[5][6]

Early life and education

Brownstein is the son of Veronica (Coleman) and Stephen Brownstein,[7][8] and his sister is Jessica Mulroney.[9] He is a descendant of the founders of Browns Shoes.[9] He grew up in Montreal and obtained his bachelor's degree in biology from the McGill University in 1999.[10] He received a Ph.D. in epidemiology in 2004 from Yale University for work on the emergence of Lyme disease[11] and West Nile virus[12] in the United States.

Career and research

Brownstein joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital in 2005, where he focused on the intersection of epidemiology and computer science. He directs the Computational Epidemiology Group at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator also at Boston Children.[13] He was appointed as full Professor of Pediatrics and Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School in 2015; tenured at age 36, he was one of the youngest professors to receive tenure in the modern history of Harvard Medical School. He received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2010 and the Lagrange Prize in 2016. He was honored with the 40 under 40 award by Boston Business Journal in 2015[14] and by Medtech Boston in 2016.[15]

Brownstein’s pioneered the creation of Computational epidemiology and E-epidemiology- utilizing diverse digital data sources to understand populations.[16][17] He has published 200 peer-reviewed papers, all focused on new methods and applications in public health surveillance. Overall, his research agenda aims to facilitate the control and prevention of disease through better epidemiologic understanding of factors influencing disease risk, improved practice of public health and engaging the public around critical health issues. As part of this work, he has built and maintains several patient facing public health systems, including HealthMap, an internet-based global infectious disease intelligence system.[18][19][20][21]

During the H1N1 pandemic, his research made important contributions to our understanding of the emergence of the virus in Mexico and its subsequent global spread.[22][23][24]

His work is credited with supporting early detection and surveillance of Cholera in 2010,[25][26] Ebola in 2014,[27][28][29][30][31] Zika in 2015.[32][33] His work has led to the application of crowdsourcing in health; a field termed "participatory epidemiology". .[34][35] His work has been funded from diverse array of sources including The U.S. Department of Defense, Google.org and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).[36] Along with Sachin H. Jain he coined the term "Digital Phenotype" in a seminal paper in Nature Biotechnology.

On December 30, 2019, the HealthMap system led by Brownstein was the first electronic disease surveillance program to issue an alert for an unknown pneumonia in Wuhan, China.[37] Following identification of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 disease, Brownstein coauthored numerous papers on nopharmaceutical interventions,[38] socioeconomic disparities,[39] and participatory surveillance[40][41] related to the global pandemic. Brownstein also coauthored a controversial paper that analyzed satellite image data and search engine traffic data and speculated that COVID-May 19 have started as early as Fall 2019 in Wuhan.[42] This claim received widespread media coverage[43][44] including reports and an academic commentary that questioned the academic rigour of the study.[45][46] Brownstein also published one of the first empirical manuscripts that showed the usage of face masks were effective at decreasing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the U.S. population.[47]

Vaccines.gov

In 2009, in response to the H1N1 pandemic, Google.org launched a web application to help people find their closest vaccination site. The free portal partnered with pharmacy chains and vaccine providers to provide real-time availability of seasonal influenza and H1N1 vaccinations.[48] In 2012, this vaccine-finding system merged with the Healthmap team to become VaccineFinder.org where, under Brownstein's leadership, it would expand to include a more diverse selection of vaccines and providers.[49] During the COVID-19 pandemic, the system would expand further to include all US providers of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.[50] In partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Department of Health and Human Services, Brownstein's team transitioned VaccineFinder to power the newly announced US government SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-finding website, Vaccines.gov.[51] The revamped and rebranded website included a Spanish mirror site (Vacunas.gov), a 24/7 hotline and text-messaging assistance service.

Other Efforts

Brownstein is co-founder of Epidemico[52] a commercial spinoff of Boston Children’s Hospital that was acquired by Booz Allen Hamilton in 2014.[53][54]

He is also the official advisor to Uber on healthcare applications where he started the UberHealth initiative.[55][56][57] From that work, he founded the company Circulation[58] which was acquired by Logisticare in 2018.[59]

He joined ABC News as a Medical Contributor as part of their COVID-19 pandemic coverage.[60][61] He won an Emmy as part of the team behind the ABC special The Shot: Race for the Vaccine, a documentary on the making of the COVID vaccine.[62]

References

  1. ↑ "John Brownstein". Harvard Department of Biomedical Informatics. July 25, 2023.
  2. ↑ "Boston Children's taps John Brownstein as Chief Innovation Officer". June 15, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Meet the new CIO of Boston Children's Hospital John Brownstein".
  4. ↑ "Computational Epidemiology Lab".
  5. ↑ "Tracking Diseases Globally". Boston.com.
  6. ↑ "When big tech companies want to get into health, they call this Harvard researcher". CNBC. July 8, 2017.
  7. ↑ Pearce, Tralee (January 2008). "Meet the new Mulroneys". The Globe and Mail.
  8. ↑ "Donalda DOYLE-COLEMAN's Obituary on The Gazette". The Gazette. Retrieved May 18, 2018.
  9. 1 2 Giacomazzo, Bernadette (October 14, 2019). "Duchess Meghan Markle's BFF Jessica Mulroney Has A New Show On Netflix — All The Details!". Your Tango. Retrieved June 13, 2020.
  10. ↑ "1999 Yearbook: McGill University, page 226".
  11. ↑ Brownstein, John S.; Holford, Theodore R.; Fish, Durland (2005). "Effect of Climate Change on Lyme Disease Risk in North America". EcoHealth. 2 (1): 38–46. doi:10.1007/s10393-004-0139-x. ISSN 1612-9202. PMC 2582486. PMID 19008966.
  12. ↑ Brownstein, John S.; Holford, Theodore R.; Fish, Durland (2004). "Enhancing West Nile Virus Surveillance, United States". Emerging Infectious Diseases. 10 (6): 1129–1133. doi:10.3201/eid1006.030457. ISSN 1080-6040. PMC 3323153. PMID 15207069.
  13. ↑ "Boston Children's Hospital Accelerator".
  14. ↑ "Here are the BBJ's 40 Under 40 honorees for 2015".
  15. ↑ "THE 2016 MEDTECH BOSTON 40 UNDER 40 HEALTHCARE INNOVATORS".
  16. ↑ Brownstein, John S.; Freifeld, Clark C.; Madoff, Lawrence C. (2009). "Digital Disease Detection — Harnessing the Web for Public Health Surveillance". New England Journal of Medicine. 360 (21): 2153–2157. doi:10.1056/NEJMp0900702. ISSN 0028-4793. PMC 2917042. PMID 19423867.
  17. ↑ Jain, Sachin H; Powers, Brian W; Hawkins, Jared B; Brownstein, John S (2015). "The digital phenotype". Nature Biotechnology. 33 (5): 462–463. doi:10.1038/nbt.3223. ISSN 1087-0156. PMID 25965751. S2CID 2318642.
  18. ↑ Cole, Adam (February 24, 2012). "Disease Sleuths Surf for Outbreaks Online". NPR.
  19. ↑ Garrity, Bronwyn (June 13, 2011). "Social Media Join Toolkit for Hunters of Disease". The New York Times.
  20. ↑ "Outbreak.com: Using the Web to Track Deadly Diseases in Real Time". Time.
  21. ↑ Mcneil, Donald G. Jr. (February 7, 2011). "Outbreaks: A Tool to Track Animal Diseases May Help to Protect Humans". The New York Times.
  22. ↑ Brownstein, John S.; Freifeld, Clark C.; Chan, Emily H.; Keller, Mikaela; Sonricker, Amy L.; Mekaru, Sumiko R.; Buckeridge, David L. (2010). "Information Technology and Global Surveillance of Cases of 2009 H1N1 Influenza". New England Journal of Medicine. 362 (18): 1731–1735. doi:10.1056/NEJMsr1002707. ISSN 0028-4793. PMC 2922910. PMID 20445186.
  23. ↑ Brownstein, John S.; Freifeld, Clark C.; Madoff, Lawrence C. (2009). "Influenza A (H1N1) Virus, 2009 — Online Monitoring". New England Journal of Medicine. 360 (21): 2156. doi:10.1056/NEJMp0904012. ISSN 0028-4793. PMC 2922951. PMID 19423868.
  24. ↑ "Tracking Swine Flu? There's an app for that". NBC NightlyNews.
  25. ↑ "Texts, maps battle Haiti cholera outbreak". CNN.
  26. ↑ Chunara, R.; Andrews, J. R.; Brownstein, J. S. (2012). "Social and News Media Enable Estimation of Epidemiological Patterns Early in the 2010 Haitian Cholera Outbreak". American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 86 (1): 39–45. doi:10.4269/ajtmh.2012.11-0597. ISSN 0002-9637. PMC 3247107. PMID 22232449.
  27. ↑ "Meet the Bots That Knew Ebola Was Coming". Time.
  28. ↑ "Ebola Mappers Track Epidemic in Real Time". NBC News. November 23, 2014.
  29. ↑ "Smart Machines Join Humans in Tracking Africa Ebola Outbreak". Scientific American.
  30. ↑ "Want to spot an outbreak before your friends? Look at this map". PBS. July 3, 2015.
  31. ↑ Zinszer, Kate; Morrison, Kathryn; Anema, Aranka; Majumder, Maimuna S; Brownstein, John S (2015). "The velocity of Ebola spread in parts of west Africa". The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 15 (9): 1005–1007. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(15)00234-0. ISSN 1473-3099. PMID 26333328.
  32. ↑ "Dr. John Brownstein's HealthMap Tracks Zika Virus". WGBH. February 5, 2016.
  33. ↑ Majumder, Maimuna S; Santillana, Mauricio; Mekaru, Sumiko R; McGinnis, Denise P; Khan, Kamran; Brownstein, John S (2016). "Utilizing Nontraditional Data Sources for Near Real-Time Estimation of Transmission Dynamics During the 2015-2016 Colombian Zika Virus Disease Outbreak". JMIR Public Health and Surveillance. 2 (1): e30. doi:10.2196/publichealth.5814. ISSN 2369-2960. PMC 4909981. PMID 27251981.
  34. ↑ "iPhone App Finds Disease Outbreaks Near You". Wired.
  35. ↑ Freifeld, Clark C.; Chunara, Rumi; Mekaru, Sumiko R.; Chan, Emily H.; Kass-Hout, Taha; Ayala Iacucci, Anahi; Brownstein, John S. (2010). "Participatory Epidemiology: Use of Mobile Phones for Community-Based Health Reporting". PLOS Medicine. 7 (12): e1000376. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000376. ISSN 1549-1676. PMC 2998443. PMID 21151888.
  36. ↑ "Children's Hospital and Google team up to track disease outbreaks". Bostinno.
  37. ↑ Cho, Adrian (May 12, 2020). "Artificial intelligence systems aim to sniff out signs of COVID-19 outbreaks". Science | AAAS. Retrieved August 31, 2020.
  38. ↑ Kraemer, Moritz U. G.; Yang, Chia-Hung; Gutierrez, Bernardo; Wu, Chieh-Hsi; Klein, Brennan; Pigott, David M.; Group†, Open COVID-19 Data Working; Plessis, Louis du; Faria, Nuno R.; Li, Ruoran; Hanage, William P. (May 1, 2020). "The effect of human mobility and control measures on the COVID-19 epidemic in China". Science. 368 (6490): 493–497. Bibcode:2020Sci...368..493K. doi:10.1126/science.abb4218. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 7146642. PMID 32213647.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  39. ↑ Rader, Benjamin; Astley, Christina M.; Sy, Karla Therese L.; Sewalk, Kara; Hswen, Yulin; Brownstein, John S.; Kraemer, Moritz U. G. (2020). "Geographic access to United States SARS-CoV-2 testing sites highlights healthcare disparities and may bias transmission estimates". Journal of Travel Medicine. 27 (7). doi:10.1093/jtm/taaa076. PMC 7239151. PMID 32412064.
  40. ↑ Chan, Andrew T.; Drew, David A.; Nguyen, Long H.; Joshi, Amit D.; Ma, Wenjie; Guo, Chuan-Guo; Lo, Chun-Han; Mehta, Raaj S.; Kwon, Sohee; Sikavi, Daniel R.; Magicheva-Gupta, Marina V. (July 1, 2020). "The COronavirus Pandemic Epidemiology (COPE) Consortium: A Call to Action". Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. 29 (7): 1283–1289. doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-20-0606. ISSN 1055-9965. PMC 7357669. PMID 32371551.
  41. ↑ Chan, Andrew T.; Brownstein, John S. (August 13, 2020). "Putting the Public Back in Public Health — Surveying Symptoms of Covid-19". New England Journal of Medicine. 383 (7): e45. doi:10.1056/NEJMp2016259. ISSN 0028-4793. PMID 32501663. S2CID 219329797.
  42. ↑ Nsoesie, Elaine Okanyene; Rader, Benjamin; Barnoon, Yiyao L.; Goodwin, Lauren; Brownstein, John (June 8, 2020). "Analysis of hospital traffic and search engine data in Wuhan China indicates early disease activity in the Fall of 2019". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  43. ↑ "Satellite images may suggest virus hit Wuhan earlier". BBC News. June 9, 2020. Retrieved July 16, 2020.
  44. ↑ Shelby Lin Erdman (June 9, 2020). "Satellite images of Wuhan may suggest coronavirus was spreading as early as August". CNN. Retrieved July 16, 2020.
  45. ↑ "Fact-checking claims coronavirus might have started earlier". BBC News. June 15, 2020.
  46. ↑ Chen, Hao; Du, Zi-Ming; Kang, Yu; Lin, Zhenyu; Ma, William (2020). "Comment on "Analysis of hospital traffic and search engine data in Wuhan China indicates early disease activity in the Fall of 2019" by Nsoesie et al". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  47. ↑ Rader, Benjamin; White, Laura F.; Burns, Michael R.; Chen, Jack; Brilliant, Joseph; Cohen, Jon; Shaman, Jeffrey; Brilliant, Larry; Kraemer, Moritz U. G.; Hawkins, Jared B.; Scarpino, Samuel V. (January 19, 2021). "Mask-wearing and control of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the USA: a cross-sectional study". The Lancet Digital Health. 3 (3): e148–e157. doi:10.1016/S2589-7500(20)30293-4. ISSN 2589-7500. PMC 7817421. PMID 33483277.
  48. ↑ Huston, Jane E.; Mekaru, Sumiko R.; Kluberg, Sheryl; Brownstein, John S. (April 16, 2015). "Searching the Web for Influenza Vaccines: HealthMap Vaccine Finder". American Journal of Public Health. 105 (8): e134–e139. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.302466. ISSN 0090-0036. PMC 4503243. PMID 25880945.
  49. ↑ Sheffer, Joe (September 1, 2012). "HealthMap Vaccine Finder: Charting a path to immunization services". Pharmacy Today. 18 (9): 34. doi:10.1016/S1042-0991(15)31687-X. ISSN 1042-0991.
  50. ↑ Rader, Benjamin; Astley, Christina M.; Sewalk, Kara; Delamater, Paul L.; Cordiano, Kathryn; Wronski, Laura; Rivera, Jessica Malaty; Hallberg, Kai; Pera, Megan F.; Cantor, Jonathan; Whaley, Christopher M. (June 12, 2021). "Spatial Accessibility Modeling of Vaccine Deserts as Barriers to Controlling SARS-CoV-2". medRxiv 10.1101/2021.06.09.21252858v1.
  51. ↑ "Government rolls out new ways to find COVID-19 vaccine with website, text messaging service". ABC News. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
  52. ↑ "Epidemico".
  53. ↑ "Five ways a Boston Children's Hospital spin-off is using social media for public health". Mobihealthnews. April 2, 2015.
  54. ↑ Jayakumar, Amrita (October 29, 2014). "Booz Allen buys Boston health analytics start-up Epidemico". Washington Post.
  55. ↑ "Outsmart the Flu with UberHEALTH". Uber. November 17, 2015.
  56. ↑ "The Uber Will See You Now". Buzzfeed. November 21, 2015.
  57. ↑ "Now there's an Uber for flu shots". The Today Show. October 23, 2014.
  58. ↑ Papp, Jonathan (August 1, 2018). "A sit-down interview with Circulation Co-founder, John Brownstein". www.circulation.com.
  59. ↑ "Circulation acquired by NEMT broker Logisticare for $46 million". www.mobihealthnews.com. MobiHealthNews. September 18, 2018.
  60. ↑ "John Brownstein". ABC News.
  61. ↑ "Latest updates on COVID-19: July 20, 2020". July 20, 2020.
  62. ↑ https://theemmys.tv/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/newsdoc-42nd-news-programming-winners-rev-10.26.21.pdf
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