A mobile application developed by researchers Joel Caplan and Leslie Kennedy at Rutgers University aims to protect first responders and healthcare workers by identifying environmental factors that could be contagion vectors among COVID-19 positive cases. The app, called Flatten, anonymously records locations of first responders’ who choose to participate using their mobile devices. Then it runs a risk assessment technique called Risk Terrain Modeling, originally developed by the same creators of the app for identifying spatial attractors of criminal behavior and environmental factors that are conducive to crime. The app uses place-based data to protect those who ‘serve and protect’ the community. To read the full story.