The Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN)

Mission

GPHIN's mission is to be an indispensable source of early warning for potential public health threats worldwide including chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN).

Goal

Because time is of the essence, the goal is to use leading-edge communications technology and automated processes on a real-time 24/7 basis complemented by human analysis to monitor media sources worldwide and provide organized, relevant information to users allowing them to respond to potential health threats in a timely manner.

What is GPHIN?

GPHIN is a secure Internet-based 'early warning' system that gathers preliminary reports of public health significance on a near 'real-time', 24 hours a day, 7 days a week basis. This unique multilingual system gathers and provides relevant unverified information on disease outbreaks and other public health events by monitoring global media sources in six languages, namely, Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. This automated process, which includes the filtering for relevancy and categorizing of information is complemented by human analysis. News articles in English are posted in the system and 'translated' into the other five languages. News articles in any of the five non-English languages are posted in the system and 'translated' into English. The 'translation' is produced by an automated machine translation process, whose principle function is to provide the user with the message of the article and not a professionally translated version.

What types of surveillance does GPHIN conduct?

GPHIN has a broad public health scope. Presently, it tracks events such as disease outbreaks, infectious diseases, contaminated food and water, bioterrorism and exposure to chemicals, natural disasters, and issues related to the safety of products, drugs and medical devices and radioactive agents.

Who uses GPHIN?

Users include non-governmental agencies and organizations, as well as government authorities who conduct public health surveillance. GPHIN is used by the global public health community in its efforts to minimize health risks by developing appropriate risk management, control and prevention measures and by timely and appropriate response.

Who manages GPHIN?

GPHIN is managed by Health Canada's Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response (CEPR), which was created in July 2000 to serve as Canada's central coordinating point for public health security. It is considered a centre of expertise in the area of civic emergencies including natural disasters and malicious acts with health repercussions. CEPR offers a number of supports to municipalities, provinces and territories, and other partners involved in first response and public health security. This is achieved through its network of public health, emergency health services, and emergency social services contacts.

Development of the Multilingual GPHIN System

This multilingual early warning system was developed in collaboration with Nstein Technologies Inc. whose headquarters is in Montreal, Canada.

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Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN)
Yearly subscription rates

Regular User

• Non-Canadian government organizations or International Organizations
  Subscription includes:
  • Access to GPHIN's eight subject categories;
  • Option to establish six predefined queries.
    • 1 user: $100 000 Cdn
    • 2 users: $150 000 Cdn
    • 3 users: $200 000 Cdn
• Government of Canada Organizations; Non-Profit Organizations that are not affiliated with governments or international organizations; Universities and Research Institutions that are not affiliated with governments or international organizations or for-profit companies / organizations / institutions*
  Subscription includes:
  • Access to GPHIN's eight subject categories;
  • Option to establish six predefined queries.
    • 1 user: $30 000 Cdn
    • 2 users: $45 000 Cdn
    • 3 users: $60 000 Cdn

*A 30-day delay in using GPHIN information for dissemination by Universities / Research Institutions that are GPHIN subscribers.

Enterprize User

• Any organization requiring more than three users
  Subscription includes:
  • 4 to 10 users;
  • Access to GPHIN's eight subject categories;
  • Option to establish six predefined queries;
  • Up to 200 hours of analytical support per year (not cumulative from year-to-year);
  • Customized user interface (reasonable customization - e.g., branding, logos, position of select icons, etc).
    • 4 to 10 users: $250 000 Cdn

Additional fees that apply to All users

• Additional subject folders (language specific) are $4 500 Cdn per year.
• Additional bi-directional language pairs are $150 000 Cdn.
• Additional analytical support is charged at $200 Cdn per hour per analyst. This support can only be provided if the necessary human resources are available. Enterprize users will have first priority.

Additional fees that apply to Enterprize users

• The subscription rate for each additional user beyond the initial 10 is $30 000 Cdn per year.