Fitbit has always been focused on helping make everyone in the world healthier.

Millions of people around the globe use Fitbit every day — from checking how well they slept to doing a workout or mindfulness session in our app.

Now they have shared their next generation of Fitbit wearables that combine Fitbit’s health and wellness tools with the smarts of Google — Inspire 3, Versa 4 and Sense 2. These devices are even thinner and more comfortable, so you can wear them all day and night, and you don’t have to charge them every day.

Whether you’re focused on improving your mental health, gearing up to run a marathon, or starting a new health and wellness routine, you have a range of easy-to-use devices to choose from. By giving you information about your body that otherwise wouldn’t be top of mind, like your resting heart rate, oxygen saturation (SpO2), sleep trends and body’s responses to stressors, you can better understand how to manage your holistic health. Here’s a look at how each device can fit your needs.

First up is the Inspire 3. A fun, easy-to-use tracker that helps you stay on top of your health with 10 days of battery life. It’s a great entry-level device with a rich colour display that can track important metrics at our most accessible price point.

Fitbit’s Versa 4 is a more fitness-focused smartwatch that offers over 40 exercise modes, real-time stats, built-in GPS and Active Zone Minutes, plus Premium features like Daily Readiness Score to help you reach your activity goals – all with 6 days of battery life in a thinner and lighter design.

And lastly the Fitbit Sense 2 is their most advanced health-focused smartwatch with more than six days of battery life that helps you manage stress and track your heart health with sensors that can detect signs of atrial fibrillation through our ECG app and PPG algorithm (both FDA cleared and CE marked), heart rate variability, skin temperature and more. It also includes our new Body Response sensor, which measures cEDA for all-day stress management.

Fitbit’s newest offerings are just the start of how they aim to help you uncover information to improve your overall health and wellness.

With the Fitbit app, you can stay motivated and on track with weekly and longitudinal stats about your activity, heart health, sleep and stress. Plus you can log your hydration, menstrual health, mood, nutrition and glucose levels all in one place. Seeing all of your metrics together can help you better understand how the actions you take each day can impact your well-being and make better decisions for your daily life.

You’ll also access important health features, including Irregular Heart Rhythm Notifications, which uses our photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor to assess your heart rhythm for signs of atrial fibrillation or AFib, for users 22 years or older with no known history of irregular heart rhythm. This feature has both FDA clearance and CE marking, and it’s compatible with a range of our heart-rate enabled devices.

Fitbit Premium, which is included with all new device purchases for six months, takes your experience even further with additions like Daily Readiness Score and Sleep Profile to dive deeper into your stats and progress, and over 1,000 workout and mindfulness sessions to keep your mind and body active.

The new Fitbit lineup will be releasing September 2022.

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OPPO has revealed its first-ever smartwatch, with the release of 46mm and 41mm OPPO Watch variations, cementing the brand’s foray into the field of wearable products.

And in a global first, the OPPO Watch 46mm sports a 3D flexible hyperboloid display, while the wider Watch Series packs a high-spec engine, fast-charging, advanced sensors for all-action workouts, all wrapped into a pleasing design.

Running on Wear OS by Google and featuring OPPO’s own Dual-Chip Endurance System, GPS, Watch VOOC Flash Charging and five pro-grade sensors.

“The OPPO Watch presents a lot for its price, with a premium screen, five sensors for a range of activity and sports monitoring and a battery that will go the distance,” says Morgan Halim, Managing Director OPPO New Zealand.

“We’re thrilled to enter a new category for wearables and broaden our offering for customers, giving them more of the quality, stylish and affordable products they love. With more Android users turning to OPPO, I have no doubt the OPPO Watch will become a staple for our customers from here and in the iterations to come.”

OPPO Watch’s flexible hyperboloid display is an innovative design typically reserved for smartphones. The 46mm version features a 1.91-inch AMOLED screen with a 72.76% screen-to-body ratio, 402×476 resolution, and 326ppi density for extra detail. An “ultra-frameless” design makes the most of every millimeter of space, packing in an impressive viewing pane.

OPPO Watch owes its slim profile to its AMOLED screen, combined with a 4.5mm aluminum frame and 3D curved glass crystal. The back of the watch uses an integrated 3D ceramic design and sensors are designed to maximise contact with the skin without exerting pressure.

OPPO Watch architecture uses its own Dual-Chip Endurance System to switch between a Qualcomm® Snapdragon chipset and a low-power Apollo3 chipset, maximising both high performance and long battery life, depending on modes. With its expertise in the field of flash charging, OPPO has also developed all-new Watch VOOC Flash Charging technology, which uses the same battery system as OPPO smartphones.

In Smart Mode, OPPO Watch 46mm can offer up to 36 hours use on a full charge (or 24 hours 41mm). In Power Saver Mode, basic functions such as notifications are enabled and use time on the 46mm Watch is up to 21 days (or 14 days 41mm). The combo of technology allows a full charge time of 0% to 100% in just 75 minutes, and it’s perfect for a quick charge on the go, with 15 minutes’ charge enough to power up a full day’s use. Whether it’s a daily commute or a long business trip, switch between dual modes and stay connected for longer.

OPPO Watch provides an extensive health monitoring system and various fitness functions to encourage healthy lifestyles.

The OPPO Watch can monitor sleep quality, generating a sleep report of the user’s duration of deep sleep, light sleep, and awake time. It can also be set to constantly monitor heart rate, and generate a chart showing heart rate over the past 24 hours. Other functions include activity and breathing reminders and women’s health features.

OPPO (and Android) smartphone users can quick-pair their phone’s health app with OPPO Watch to access additional health and fitness services with the HeyTap Health, as well as keeping across key data and tracking metrics.

Packing five exercise sensors, including a Barometer, Geometric Sensor, Optical Heart Rate Sensor PPG, Ambient Light Sensor, Gyroscope Sensor, the OPPO Watch can track those runs, swims, bike rides, walks, and other activities.

Location services will map activity routes and distance, and with 50-metre water resistance on OPPO Watch 46mm (or up to 30m – 41mm), it will stay protected in water or wild weather.

OPPO Watch offers a range of features to make working out easier for those days in a rut, including a ‘5 Minute Workouts’ library for goals such as burning fat or more simple wind down for bed exercises. OPPO Watch Activity Bars track progress along an X-shaped activity meter, with four different coloured bars tracking steps, calories and exercise.

Google Fit comes built-in to OPPO Watch, bringing real-time exercise tracking and a choice from over 90 different modes of exercises.

OPPO Watch also features AI technology to match users’ watch faces with their outfit of the day! Plus a selection of 12 face watches to choose from to brighten up the day or spike inspiration.

Each watch comes with a fluoro rubber strap with more watch straps available in a variety of colors to suit every occasion, from meetings to date night to workouts. The band can be easily removed by pushing a single button.

OPPO Watch uses all Google Play services and store apps, including Google Maps, Google Fit, podcasts, music and more.

OPPO Watch will be available for online pre-sale from Friday 21st of August, 2020. The OPPO Watch Series will be available to purchase from stores and online from 4th of September 2020.

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Apple today previewed watchOS 7, delivering enhanced customisation tools and powerful new health and fitness features to the world’s most advanced smartwatch.

Personalisation is taken to an entirely new level with shareable and discoverable watch face configurations, while sleep tracking, automatic handwashing detection, additional workout types including dance, and a new hearing health feature give greater insight into overall well-being and are designed with privacy in mind. Conveniently on the wrist, Maps is updated with cycling directions and Siri now offers language translation.

“We’re energised by the positive impact Apple Watch is having on our customers and are excited to deliver meaningful new tools that support their health, fitness, and wellness,” said Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer. “watchOS 7 brings sleep tracking, automatic handwashing detection, and new workout types together with a whole new way to discover and use watch faces, helping our users stay healthy, active, and connected.”

Faces are central to the watch experience, providing customers with valuable information at a glance and the ability to personalise their Apple Watch. watchOS 7 offers new ways to discover and share unique combinations to completely configure the watch face to suit any activity or lifestyle, from the new parent to the surfing aficionado, tennis player, or photographer. Infinitely customisable and personalised faces, inclusive of complications, can be shared through Messages or Mail, and discovered through the App Store or even from links through websites and social media channels.

watchOS 7 offers updates to faces for more personalisation and greater access to favourite apps. The beautifully detailed and ultra-precise Chronograph Pro includes a tachymeter to calculate speed based on time traveled over a fixed distance, the Photos face offers colour filters, and the bold X-Large face now has an option to add a rich complication.

Developers now have the ability to offer more than one complication per app on a single watch face. For example, on one watch face, Glow Baby can display multiple complications that help new parents track bottle-feeding, breastfeeding, pumping statistics, and nap times, while Dawn Patrol can show surfers tide, wind speed, and water temperature from a favourite surf spot.

With watchOS 7, Apple Watch introduces sleep tracking, taking a holistic approach to sleep by providing valuable tools to help users get the desired amount of sleep, get to bed on time, and create a pre-bedtime routine to meet their sleep goals. Through the detection of micro-movements from the watch’s accelerometer, which signals respiration during sleep, Apple Watch intelligently captures when the wearer is sleeping and how much sleep they get each night. In the morning, the wearer will see a visualisation of their previous night’s sleep, including periods of wake and sleep. They will also get a chart showing their weekly sleep trend.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, a bedtime routine helps the body prepare for sleep.1 To support this, Wind Down allows Apple Watch and iPhone users to create a customised routine before bed, including setting up a specific scene in the Home app, listening to a soothing soundscape, or using a favourite meditation app. In Sleep Mode, Apple Watch turns on Do Not Disturb and automatically darkens the screen overnight.

To help users wake up, Apple Watch offers a silent haptic alarm or gentle sounds, while the wake-up screen shows the current battery level. Depending on personal charging behaviour, if the battery is too low within an hour of bedtime, Apple Watch will remind users to charge it ahead of sleep. Sleep data is encrypted on device or in iCloud with iCloud sync, and data is always in the user’s control.

Washing hands properly for at least 20 seconds can help prevent the spread of illness. In a first-of-its-kind innovation for a wearable, Apple Watch uses the motion sensors, microphone, and on-device machine learning to automatically detect handwashing motions and sounds. It then initiates a 20-second countdown timer, and if the user finishes early, they will be prompted to keep washing. Apple Watch can also conveniently remind the user to wash their hands when they return home.

The Health app on iPhone will show frequency and duration of the user’s handwashing, as well as information on the importance of handwashing, as it relates to overall health. Sounds used to detect handwashing are not automatically recorded or saved by the Health app or Apple Watch. If the user chooses to improve the handwashing feature, processed audio may be saved and sent to Apple.

The Workout app is one of the most popular apps on Apple Watch, and watchOS 7 brings four exciting new workout types supported by powerful heart rate and custom-built motion algorithms: Core Training, Dance, Functional Strength Training, and Cooldown.

To correctly capture kilojoule exertion for Dance, Apple Watch uses advanced sensor fusion, combining data from the heart rate sensor and inputs from the accelerometer and gyroscope, that accounts for the unique challenges of measuring different body-to-arm motions typical with dance. This workout type was validated and tested with four of the most popular dance styles for exercise: Bollywood, cardio dance, hip-hop, and Latin.

The redesigned Activity app on iPhone, now called Fitness, provides a streamlined view of data including daily Activity, Workouts, Awards, and Activity Trends on one tab, and Activity Sharing and Activity Competitions on another.

Following the introduction of the Noise app in watchOS 6 that measures ambient sound levels and duration of exposure, watchOS 7 adds further support for hearing health with headphone audio notifications. Customers can now understand how loudly they are listening to media through their headphones using their iPhone, iPod, or Apple Watch, and when these levels may impact hearing over time.

When total listening with headphones has reached 100 per cent of the safe weekly listening amount, Apple Watch provides a notification to the wearer. This amount is based on World Health Organisation recommendations that, for instance, a person can be exposed to 80 decibels for about 40 hours per week without an impact to hearing abilities.2 Customers can also see how long they have been exposed to high decibel levels each week in the Health app on iPhone and can control the maximum level for headphone volume. No audio from the headphone audio notification feature is recorded or saved by the Health app or Apple Watch.

Additional watchOS 7 Updates:

• For optimal convenience while biking, cycling directions are available right on the wrist. Directions are large and easy to read, and Maps can direct when to dismount and walk the bike, or take the stairs to save time. The wearer can choose a route that avoids steep hills, gets to the destination the quickest, or takes the most direct path.

• Customers can now use Siri to translate many languages conveniently from the wrist, dictation is handled on device with the power of the Apple Neural Engine for faster and more reliable processing, and Apple Watch now supports Announce Messages with Siri. The Shortcuts app is also now available on Apple Watch and can be accessed as a complication.

• Developers can create graphic complications with SwiftUI, and new developer tools such as Xcode Previews make building them even easier.

• New complications for native features include: Camera Remote, Sleep, and Shortcuts.

• New Mobility Metrics available in the Health app include: low-range cardio fitness, walking speed, stair-descent speed, stair-ascent speed, six-minute walk distance, double support time, step length, and asymmetry. These metrics are important for the clinical community to monitor patients’ ability to move safely and easily as they age. Typically only measured in a lab setting, these metrics can be uniquely measured by Apple Watch and iPhone, and used by developers, such as Zimmer Biomet, a musculoskeletal healthcare company, in patient care and in management tools such as mymobility.

Privacy is fundamental to Apple and particularly important when it comes to health data, so all health features are designed with privacy in mind. Health data is encrypted on device or in iCloud with iCloud sync, and data is always in the user’s control.

watchOS 7 will be available this spring as a free software update for Apple Watch Series 3, Apple Watch Series 4, or Apple Watch Series 5 paired with iPhone 6s or later running iOS 14 or later.

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Fitbit today launched the Fitbit Heart Study, its first large-scale, virtual study to validate the use of its wearable technology to identify episodes of irregular heart rhythm suggestive of atrial fibrillation (AFib), the most common form of heart rhythm irregularity.

This study is part of the Company’s broader strategy to make easy-to-use tools that accelerate detection of a range of conditions more accessible. The Fitbit Heart Study aims to enroll hundreds of thousands of participants and its results will support the Company’s regulatory submissions globally.

AFib affects nearly 33.5 million people globally and patients with AFib have a five times higher risk of stroke. It can also be difficult to detect, as episodes can be sporadic and asymptomatic, and some studies suggest that as many as 25 percent of people who have an AFib-related stroke only find out they have AFib after a stroke has occurred.

“Until recently, tools for detecting AFib had a number of limitations and were only accessible if you visited a doctor,” said Steven Lubitz, M.D., M.P.H, principal investigator of the Fitbit Heart Study, cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “My hope is that advancing research on innovative and accessible technology, like Fitbit devices, will lead to more tools that help improve health outcomes and reduce the impact of AFib on a large scale.”Fitbit wearables have the unique potential to accelerate AFib detection because their 24/7 heart rate tracking is powered by long battery life, which allows users to wear their device for multiple days at a time. This enables long-term heart rhythm assessment, including when users are asleep. The optimal way to identify irregular rhythm through heart rate tracking technology is to screen when the body is at rest, making assessment overnight, while people sleep, ideal for detection.

“Since we first brought heart rate tracking to the wrist in 2015, we have continued to innovate and provide users with a deeper understanding of their heart health through features like Sleep Stages, Cardio Fitness Level and now Active Zone Minutes,” said Eric Friedman, Fitbit co-founder and CTO. “The Fitbit Heart Study advances our heart health efforts. Long-term passive heart rhythm assessment with our wide range of affordable devices powered by 24/7 heart rate tracking technology has the potential to improve earlier identification of AFib, which is a key to reducing the risk of a life-threatening event like stroke. By doing this important research we have the opportunity to develop and provide access to technology that may be able to improve public health and save lives.”To track heart rate, Fitbit’s devices use photoplethysmography (PPG) technology to measure the rate of blood flow directly from a user’s wrist. Theoretically, these measurements can be used to determine a user’s heart rhythm, which Fitbit’s algorithm will analyze for irregularities in the Fitbit Heart Study. Study participants who receive a notification about an irregular heart rhythm will be connected with a doctor for a virtual appointment at no cost to get more information and may receive an electrocardiogram (ECG) patch in the mail at no cost to confirm the notification.

The Fitbit Heart Study is part of Fitbit’s broader approach to heart health innovation, which includes industry partnerships and the development of other technologies focused on raising awareness and accelerating detection of AFib to reduce the risk of stroke and improve population health. In addition to the technology being examined in the Fitbit Heart Study, the company has made significant progress in the development of a new electrocardiogram (ECG) feature for spot detection of AFib.

Fitbit aims to provide users with both long- and short-term AFib assessment options based on their individual needs and is developing PPG and ECG tools that could offer both long-term assessment and spot-check AFib detection. The Fitbit PPG-based heart rhythm tool is designed to identify irregular rhythm episodes with no symptoms that might otherwise go undetected, and the Fitbit ECG feature is designed to support those who want to screen themselves for possible AFib and record an ECG trace they can review with their doctor. The Company has completed a pivotal clinical trial of its new ECG feature and plans to seek review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and global regulatory authorities.

Additionally, following FDA clearance for the PPG AFib algorithm, Fitbit will continue to work with the Bristol-Myers Squibb-Pfizer Alliance to develop programs and educational content that will help identify and support people in the U.S. at increased risk for stroke to provide a continuous and supported care pathway that extends to AFib diagnosis.

The study is open to people in the United States ages 22 years and older with a current Fitbit device that tracks heart rate, including Fitbit Ionic, Fitbit Versa family of smart watches, Fitbit Charge 3, Fitbit Charge 4 and Fitbit Inspire HR.

Participant data will be kept confidential and will only be shared with study partners in connection with the study. For more details on the Fitbit Heart Study or to enroll, go to the official site. The study will support the clinical evaluation of the Company’s PPG AFib algorithm, including whether it can successfully identify episodes of irregular heart rhythm.

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New data from the fully impartial price and product comparison site, PriceSpy, suggests Kiwis are very much behind the fast-moving world of wearable tech products.

According to historical click data from PriceSpy, the shopping category for smart watches has already increased in popularity in 2020, receiving almost 70 per cent (68 per cent) more clicks in January 2020 compared to January 2019*. Rather impressively, the shopping category of fitness watches also increased by almost 40 per cent (38 per cent) over the same period of time.

Not all wearable fitness gadgets however grew at the same rate, as the PriceSpy research found the shopping category for traditional activity trackers, which include products such as the Fitbit Charge 3 and Fitbit Inspire HR, dropped in clicks by almost a fifth (-19 per cent) year-on-year.

Liisa Matinvesi-Bassett, New Zealand country manager for PriceSpy, says: “Our latest findings highlight just how much wearable fitness gadgets have taken off in New Zealand.

“January is obviously one of the biggest times of the year that consumers look to invest in health and wellness products but compared to just one year ago, the percentage of shoppers clicking on smart watches in particular has grown phenomenally, increasing 68 per cent.”

Quick facts:

• The wearable tech industry was reported worth nearly $23 billion in 2018 and this figure is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19 per cent to reach $54 billion by 2023 (source: globaldata);
• The number of connected wearable devices worldwide has more than doubled in the space of three years, increasing from 325 million in 2016 to 722 million in 2019. The number of devices is forecast to reach more than one billion by 2022 (source: Statista);
• In 2023, it is projected that 131.6 million smartwatches will be shipped worldwide, up from 91.8 million units in 2019 (source: Statista).

Liisa continues: “Whilst popularity for wearable fitness gadgets continues to grow rapidly, our insights suggest not all products are as popular as others. For example, the percentage of clicks received for traditional activity trackers dropped by almost one fifth year year-on-year.

“What’s particularly interesting about this is consumers appear to be clicking more on wearable fitness gadgets that have a considerably higher price point, suggesting shoppers are looking to invest in this market for the long run.”

“In terms of leading wearables fitness gadget brands, our data shows Fitbit, Samsung and Apple were most popular with Kiwi shoppers in 2019, as well in 2020 so far. But it’s not just the usual tech companies that are putting their stake in the ground, as fashion designers such as Louis Vuitton are getting in on the action, selling wearable tech products costing up to $7300 NZD.”

Liisa concludes: “For those who are in the market for a new wearable fitness gadget and are unsure what your money can buy, our key recommendation is to use a price and product comparison site or app, such as PriceSpy to do your buying research first.

“Using such a site or app will help shoppers in more way than one. Firstly, they can make sure they are not paying over the odds for an item that may cost considerably less elsewhere. Secondly, consumers can compare the features of multiple wearable fitness gadgets in one place, so they can invest their money wisely and choose the best product that best suits their individual needs.”

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First study to evaluate de-identified data from wearable devices on resting heart rate and sleep finds improved real-time prediction of influenza-like illness in five US states compared to current surveillance methods.

The research, published in The Lancet Digital Health journal, demonstrates the potential of data from wearable devices to improve surveillance of infectious disease. Resting heart rate tends to spike during infectious episodes and this is captured by wearable devices such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, that track heart rate. De-identified data from 47,249 Fitbit users, retrospectively identifies weeks with elevated resting heart rate and changes to routine sleep. Further prospective studies will need to be done to help differentiate between infectious versus non-infectious forecasting.

Influenza results in 650,000 deaths worldwide annually. Approximately 7% of working adults and 20% of children aged under five years get flu each year. Traditional surveillance reporting takes 1-3 weeks to report, which limits the ability to enact quick outbreak response measures – such as ensuring patients stay at home, wash hands, and deploying antivirals and vaccines.

Past studies using crowdsourced data, such as Google Flu Trends and Twitter have found variable success on their own as these methods tend to overestimate rates during epidemics. This is because it is impossible to separate out the activity of individuals with influenza from heightened awareness or related to media during flu season.

Study author Dr Jennifer Radin, Scripps Research Translational Institute, USA, says: “Responding more quickly to influenza outbreaks can prevent further spread and infection, and we were curious to see if sensor data could improve real-time surveillance at the state level. We demonstrate the potential for metrics from wearable devices to enhance flu surveillance and consequently improve public health responses. In the future as these devices improve, and with access to 24 / 7 real-time data, it may be possible to identify rates of influenza on a daily instead of weekly basis.”

The researchers reviewed de-identified data from 200,000 users who wore a Fitbit wearable device that tracks users’ activity, heart rate and sleep for at least 60 days during the study time from March 2016 to March 2018. From the 200,000, 47,248 users from California, Texas, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania wore a Fitbit device consistently during the study period, resulting in a total of 13,342,651 daily measurements evaluated. The average user was 43 years old and 60% were female. All Fitbit users, including those whose data are included in this study, are notified that their de-identified data could potentially be used for research in the Fitbit Privacy Policy.

Users’ average resting heart rate and sleep duration were calculated, as well as deviations to this to help identify when these measures were outside of an individual’s typical range (ie, using standard deviation). During each week, a user was identified as abnormal if their weekly average resting heart rate was above their overall average (by more than a half or a full standard deviation) and their weekly average sleep was not below their overall average (by more than half a standard deviation). The users were arranged by which state they lived in, and the proportion of users above the threshold each week was calculated. This data was compared to weekly estimates for influenza-like illness rates reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

By incorporating data from Fitbit trackers, influenza predictions at the state level were improved. In all five states there was an improvement in real-time surveillance, and the closest alignment with CDC data was found when abnormal resting heart rate was defined as half a standard deviation above normal and sleep more than half a standard deviation below.

This is the first time heart rate trackers and sleep data have been used to predict flu, or any infectious disease, in real-time. With greater volumes of data it may be possible to apply the method to more geographically refined areas, such as county or city-level.

The authors identify several limitations in their study. A general lack of activity data meant they could not control for seasonal fitness changes or more short-term activity changes. Weekly resting heart rate averages may include days when an individual is both sick and not sick, and this may result in underestimation of illness by lowering the weekly averages. Other factors may also increase resting heart rate, including stress or other infections. Lastly, the authors note that previous studies of sleep measuring devices have been found to have low accuracy, though the authors note that accuracy will continue to improve as technology evolves.

In the study, the Fitbit users were predominantly middle age adults and likely higher income than the general population so potentially less likely to suffer comorbidities which could make them more susceptible to severe infections. They also may be more likely to get influenza vaccines or receive antivirals or other medicines if they do get sick which can reduce disease severity, so the models may need to be modified for use in other populations.

In a linked Comment article, Dr Cécile Viboud of the Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, USA, says: “The study by Radin et al is a promising first step towards integrating wearable measurements in predictive models of infectious diseases. […] we anticipate that the large amount of real-time data generated by Fitbit and other personal devices will prove highly useful for public health and augment traditional surveillance systems. The ever expanding “big data” revolution offers unique opportunities to mine new data streams, identify epidemiologically-relevant patterns, and enrich infectious disease forecasts.”

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