How do new medical models affect patients, doctors, and medical decisionmaking? Explaining our understanding of epidemic disease through history, Virtual Epidemics the recent turn toward predictive mapping and surveillance technologies of emerging infectious disease.



Achitoff-Gray shows how new internet and other medical models dovetail with Western medical discourse to create a culture of fear of disease held by both doctors and patients. She explores such questions as: How does the predominant emerging diseases worldview alter our understanding of health and bodies? What are the goal and implications of surveillance technologies such as Google Flu Trends, that superimpose maps of future events upon specific regions and populations? How is the volatile space of virtual disease influencing domestic and global health policy?