Friday, August 24, 2012

HUNCH: Donate your Data

We discussed medical records in class and I was left thinking about people who donate their bodies to science posthumously. Would people be willing to share (sell or even donate?) their health information? My guess is yes. This is essentially a living version of organ donation. It's the sharing of electronic records as opposed to physical matter. It's much easier in a sense to click 'share' on the computer, than it is to mail a saliva sample to a lab. The GigaOm report touches on this quite a bit...but I would be curious to explore beyond medical records. 

What if a human health report included the participant's taste in food? Their daily diet? Their purchases of alchohol and tobacco? Records of where they ran or for how long they went to the gym?A detailed look at how many people cope with illnesses or simply stay healthy over the course of their lives would only enrich basic health record information.

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