Extended Abstract (16K)P1.15
Second outlines of a proposition for an international web-research- and web-community-project in weather sensitivity
Heinz Kersebom, www.medizinmeteorologie.de, Bremen, Germany
For a short while we know on the basis of a statistically representative professional survey more about the prevalence of weather sensitivity on the basis of the self-assessment of the population in Germany (see a short presentation: www.medizinmeteorologie.de). Now that it is quite clear that the larger half of the population (in Germany so far) sees itself to a high or to some degree as weather sensitive, it would be fatal, if no larger efforts were undertaken here, in order to be able to help this humans really substantially. What is needed in the run of the further research process are daily reports from weather sensitive people – in optimal case from a statistically representative group and over as long a period as possible. The philosophy for a way, how this ambitious aim and data collection would be at all realizable and financable in the rela-tively easiest way, would be: These datas are put (in the optimal case daily) over the Internet into a web-form, whose con-tent was elaborated before by experts, and then transferred to a target web-server. So the datas are immediately given in electronic form and can be processed and analysed partly automatically, partly by accompanying scientists with data base and statistical tools. Many participants have to be found, who would be ready und sufficiently reliable as well to transmit during a longer period every-day data. Since there are very many millions suffering from weather sensitivity that should be - may be not easy - but realizable. Particularly because for these persons one of the best measures to get rid of their problems in the future is to help this investigation. One person is needed only to care in different ways for the hopefully developing web community of the weather sensitive people. For example to publish every day a short note on the website with a subject that is interesting for the target group. The problem of the statistical representativity of the resulting data under Internet conditions must be solved. One scientist has to (in the context of a group of researchers) pursue the current data input directly several times per week (or even more often). He/she would have the possibility at any time to analyze striking tendencies in the incoming data and bring them together with the current meteorological data; he/she could also directly ask the sender by e-mail for further explanations about the transferred data. If one already moves on electronic and web level, the ways for international implementations are shorter and more simple. Such a project constellation is almost an invitation to establish subprojects in different countries. To adapt a once achieved web basic structure for different countries and languages is technically seen no bigger problem. This opens the door wide to international comparative weather sensitivity research which would be a fascinating progress.
Supplementary URL: http://www.medizinmeteorologie.de
Poster Session 1, Poster Session: Human Biometeorology
Monday, 28 October 2002, 1:00 PM-2:00 PM
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