Mobile phone data in Haiti improves emergency aid
Population movements in the wake of disasters make it difficult to deliver the right amount of humanitarian aid to the right places. During the earthquake and ensuing cholera epidemic in Haiti, researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and Columbia University, USA, developed a new method for solving this problem – they monitored the continual movements of two million anonymous mobile phones and reported directly to the humanitarian relief organisations on the ground. The method, which is now presented in the scientific journal PLoS Medicine, may have a major impact on future disaster