Caroline Buckee: Can Mobile-phone Data Help Control the Spread of the Coronavirus?

10/26/20 • 30 min

Can cellphone technologies play a role in controlling the coronavirus pandemic? Knowing how public health policies interact with people’s actual behavior, even at an anonymous population-level view, can help guide the decisions of leaders. Mobile phone location data can reveal large-scale patterns of activity and travel between regions. In this episode, associate professor of epidemiology Caroline Buckee explains how such data—carefully stewarded to ensure individual privacy—can even be used to help predict where outbreaks are likely to flare next.

For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/caroline-buckee.

Ask a Harvard Professor is hosted by Jonathan Shaw, Marina Bolotnikova, Jacob Sweet, and produced by Jacob Sweet and Niko Yaitanes. Our theme music was composed by Louis Weeks.

For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/caroline-buckee.

Ask a Harvard Professor is hosted by Jonathan Shaw, Marina Bolotnikova, Jacob Sweet, and produced by Jacob Sweet and Niko Yaitanes. Our theme music was composed by Louis Weeks.

Previous Episode

Daniel Schrag and David Keith: Can solar geoengineering help fight climate change?

Climate change may be the hardest problem the human race has ever confronted. In a single century, humans have set in motion events that will unfold on a geological timescale, ultimately redrawing coastlines around the globe as ice sheets melt and sea level rises. Can humanity agree to meet its energy needs with renewables such as wind and solar power? Is there a threshold beyond which the effects of greenhouse gases will become irreversible? Can solar geoengineering help stop this runaway train? In this episode, Daniel Schrag, director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment and Sturgis Hooper professor of geology and professor of environmental science and engineering, and David Keith, the Gordon McKay professor of applied physics in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School discuss the ramifications of climate change and an engineered response.

For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/podcast/2020/daniel-schrag-and-david-keith

Ask a Harvard Professor is hosted by Jonathan Shaw, Marina Bolotnikova, Jacob Sweet, and produced by Jacob Sweet and Niko Yaitanes. Our theme music was composed by Louis Weeks.

Next Episode

Danielle Allen: What Do COVID-19 and Extreme Inequality Mean for American Democracy?

In this episode, political philosopher Danielle Allen explains why the COVID crisis, extreme inequality, and undemocratic government are all connected—and how democracy in America can still be reinvigorated.

For more information about Harvard Magazine and this podcast, visit www.harvardmagazine.com/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

For a transcript of this episode, go to https://harvardmagazine.com/2020/danielle-allen.

Ask a Harvard Professor is hosted by Jonathan Shaw, Marina Bolotnikova, Jacob Sweet, and produced by Jacob Sweet and Niko Yaitanes. Our theme music was composed by Louis Weeks.