Facebook is rolling out a survey to help health researchers working to forecast the spread of COVID-19. The survey is run by the Carnegie Mellon University Delphi Research Center.
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“Off-Facebook” Survey to Help Track Self-Reported Symptoms
The survey is described as being “off-Facebook” in a blog post by KX Jin, Head of Health, and Laura McGorman, Data for Good. The data acquired will be used to, amongst other things, create heat maps of self-reported symptoms. The social media giant said it is tackling privacy concerns by assigning a random ID number to those who complete the survey that will be shared with researchers. In addition, a weight value is assigned to each user and shared with researchers. This is to help correct for sample bias.
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Facebook also announced the rollout of three new types of Disease Prevention Maps. They are intended to help with disease forecasting and protective measures.
And then they will get targeted ads.