John Samuel Brownstein, Ph.D.

John Brownstein, PhD

Professor of Pediatrics, Boston Children's Hospital
Affiliate Member, Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School

John Brownstein is Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, a position shaped in large part by his career-long success in using emerging technologies to help clarify patterns of disease and promote public health interventions. His work has pioneered ‘digital epidemiology’—utilizing diverse digital data sources to understand population health—and his expertise here and in the area of geographic information systems has provided a key role in guiding DBMI on the consideration of place as a key disease risk factor. His portfolio at BCH includes grants from NIH, USAID, DoD, IARPA, CDC, Google, Skoll and Gates Foundation. Following receipt of his PhD in Epidemiology from Yale, Brownstein did a postdoctoral fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) before becoming a member of the faculty at BCH. 

Evaluation of Internet-based dengue query data: Google Dengue Trends.
Authors: Gluskin RT, Johansson MA, Santillana M, Brownstein JS.
PLoS Negl Trop Dis
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Guess who's not coming to dinner? Evaluating online restaurant reservations for disease surveillance.
Authors: Nsoesie EO, Buckeridge DL, Brownstein JS.
J Med Internet Res
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Factors influencing performance of internet-based biosurveillance systems used in epidemic intelligence for early detection of infectious diseases outbreaks.
Authors: Barboza P, Vaillant L, Le Strat Y, Hartley DM, Nelson NP, Mawudeku A, Madoff LC, Linge JP, Collier N, Brownstein JS, Astagneau P.
PLoS One
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A global compendium of human dengue virus occurrence.
Authors: Messina JP, Brady OJ, Pigott DM, Brownstein JS, Hoen AG, Hay SI.
Sci Data
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Evaluation of local media surveillance for improved disease recognition and monitoring in global hotspot regions.
Authors: Schwind JS, Wolking DJ, Brownstein JS, Mazet JA, Smith WA.
PLoS One
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Global database of leishmaniasis occurrence locations, 1960-2012.
Authors: Pigott DM, Golding N, Messina JP, Battle KE, Duda KA, Balard Y, Bastien P, Pratlong F, Brownstein JS, Freifeld CC, Mekaru SR, Madoff LC, George DB, Myers MF, Hay SI.
Sci Data
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Public health for the people: participatory infectious disease surveillance in the digital age.
Authors: Wójcik OP, Brownstein JS, Chunara R, Johansson MA.
Emerg Themes Epidemiol
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The perfect storm of information: combining traditional and non-traditional data sources for public health situational awareness during hurricane response.
Authors: Bennett KJ, Olsen JM, Harris S, Mekaru S, Livinski AA, Brownstein JS.
PLoS Curr
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Quantifying the effect of media limitations on outbreak data in a global online web-crawling epidemic intelligence system, 2008-2011.
Authors: Scales D, Zelenev A, Brownstein JS.
Emerg Health Threats J
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Using search queries for malaria surveillance, Thailand.
Authors: Ocampo AJ, Chunara R, Brownstein JS.
Malar J
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