FlockWatch

Inspiration

Avian influenza outbreak is a growing agricultural and public health concern, with highly pathogenic viral strains affecting poultry, cattle and humans. Rapid detection and response are crucial to prevent disease spread, protect livestock, and minimize economic losses. Farmers, or anyone who owns poultry, need a quickly accessible and easy-to-use tool to know if they should be concerned about a potential outbreak in their area.

What it does

That is why we made FlockWatch! FlockWatch is a web-based interactive tool that shows avian flu outbreak for poultry and wild birds by location in the United States of America.

How we built it

1. We created an interactive map from outbreak data for poultry and wild birds (https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html). For poultry, this map shows the outbreak number, flock type, and outbreak date. For wild birds, it shows the total number of birds affected, viral strain, and outbreak date.
2. We then used RShiny to create an easy-to-use, interactive web tool where users input their location (county and state) and get up-to-date information about outbreaks in their area.
3. We performed a Pearsons correlation test between flock size and number of outbreaks and found a weak positive correlation (0.491). We believe this is important information to include.

Challenges we ran into

Our first challenge was deciding which Challenge to do (1, 2, or 3). Deciding on what tools/methods to use was also a challenge at the beginning, but that was quickly resolved.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are very proud of how much we learned and did in 12 hours. We are also very proud of the maps we made. We came up with a project as a team and saw it to completion, with everyone doing their parts. This was the first hackathon that 3/4 team members have participated in, so we are very proud of ourselves.

What we learned

We learned how to make interactive maps and create interactive web tools with RShiny.

What's next for FlockWatch

What's next for FlockWatch would be to include real-time updates and integrate genetic and phylogenetic data. We would also include outbreak data for other species, including humans.

Built With

• r