Mental health surveillance after the terrorist attacks in Paris

The terror events in Paris in November, 2015, and elsewhere remind us of the substantial consequences that violent events can have for a population's mental health. Although effective approaches exist for treating these consequences, no systematic attempts have been made to identify populations at risk early on to expeditiously mitigate them. Social media could help identify populations in need during and after disasters. Specifically, automated sentiment analysis can extract emotional reactions from these data, and space–time syndromic surveillance can effectively detect disease outbreaks.