Hokie Plague Tracker

Dashboard
Illness Report Map

Inspiration

When illness spreads around campus, students often hear about it through friends before there is a clear picture of what is happening. We wanted to make those scattered experiences more useful to Schiffert Health Center and other healthcare providers (HCPs). Hokie Plague Tracker brings community reports together to help highlight which illnesses are being reported and where activity is increasing.

What it does

Students can report an illness, its severity, and their residence information. An interactive dashboard displays illness breakdowns, reporting trends, dorm statistics, and a map of nearby reports.

These patterns could help Schiffert and other HCPs recognize emerging concerns, anticipate student needs, and focus campus health messaging. Students also gain a clearer view of the illness activity being reported around them.

How we built it

We built the frontend with React, TypeScript, and Vite, using a Virginia Tech-inspired maroon and orange design. A Python Flask backend processes reports and calculates statistics. Supabase handles authentication and database storage, while Google Maps displays dorm reports and approximate off-campus areas. The dashboard refreshes regularly as new reports arrive.

Challenges we faced

One challenge was turning individual reports into summaries that are useful at a glance. Another was balancing location detail with privacy, especially for off-campus residents.

We also needed to present the data responsibly. Reports reflect community participation and self-reported illness, so increases can highlight patterns worth investigating without establishing a confirmed outbreak.

What we learned

We learned how to connect mapping services, authentication, and data aggregation into a working application. More importantly, we learned to think about how the same information serves different audiences. Students want to understand what is being reported nearby, while healthcare providers need clear trends that can support further investigation, outreach, and planning.

What's Next For Hokie Plague Tracker?

Working with Schiffert. The most valuable next step is talking to the people this is meant to serve. We would like to learn what format and cadence would actually fit into Schiffert's workflow, and build an export or a summary view around that answer rather than around our guess at it.