Google to predict flu outbreaks through search data

by Staff, Brand Republic 12-Nov-08, 11:45

NEW YORK - Google is using data collected from people searching for flu-related websites in the US to estimate where there might be big outbreaks of influenza.

Google said in its blog that it had come up with the idea because of the success of using its search terms to predict trends or the outcomes of elections and so forth.

The company, whose motto is 'Do no evil', already has an interest in public health issues because of its charitable arm Google.org, which aims to predict and prevent disease.

A team found that certain search queries tended to be very common during the flu season and compared the data against that provided by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It revealed a correlation between the frequency of searches and the number of people experiencing flu-like symptoms.

The blog says that the CDC does a great job of tracking flu but that traditional surveillance can take between one and two weeks.

"By making our flu estimates available each day, Google Flu Trends may provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza," software engineers Jeremy Ginsberg and Matt Mohebbi said in the blog.

"Our up-to-date influenza estimates may enable public health officials and health professionals to better respond to seasonal epidemics and - though we hope never to find out - pandemics."

The blog adds that the system is still very experimental, but that it hopes to see correlations between its data and that provided by the CDC in the coming year.

The 1918 outbreak of influenza is estimated to have killed more than 20m people across the world.

Comments

Tom Griffiths - 12/11/2008

This is fine but ultimately flawed as it doesn't take into account 'man flu'...demographic profiling could counter this as the stats could be adjusted where there is a male bias in the population, so all of us men typing in 'flu symptoms' when actually we've got 'a bit of a sniffle' would be disregarded. Naturally women wouldn't have the time to type in a search query as they'd be busy 'battling through it' and 'carrying on as normal' - it's just a bit of a cold after all!