A landmark study examining disease notification procedures has revealed that preventing the spread of infectious diseases may actually require notifying relevant authorities about the diseases, researchers announced Tuesday. The study, which analyzed 847 cruise ship passengers and their subsequent geographic dispersal patterns over a six-week period, appears to suggest that health agencies could benefit from what researchers are calling "informational coordination."

"What makes this finding particularly striking is the apparent disconnect between disease identification and disease communication," said Dr. Helena Varga, Professor of Epidemiological Linguistics at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Our data is consistent with the possibility that knowing about a disease outbreak and telling people about a disease outbreak may actually be two separate processes that could, theoretically, be linked."

The implications of this research extend far beyond cruise ship protocols, according to experts not involved in the study. Dr. Marcus Chen, Chair of Administrative Virology at the University of Michigan, told researchers that the findings may revolutionize how public health agencies approach what he termed "the radical concept of sharing relevant information with relevant people." The study noted that communication failures increased by 340% when agencies assumed other agencies possessed telepathic capabilities.

Previous research has established that disease vectors often travel between geographic locations, but this new paper suggests that information about disease vectors may need to travel as well. "The real question," Varga told me, "is whether we're optimizing for bureaucratic efficiency or actual human survival."