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Google Launches 'Flu Trends' Tracking Tool

googe flu trendsCan search terms be used as an indicator for the spread of flu across the world? That's the question the philanthropic arm of Google were intrigued to tackle, and based on the public launch of their Google.org Flu Trends online tool, it appears the answer is an overwhelming 'yes'.

The premise is based on the concept that people who search for flu-related terms are potentially an indicator that flu may be present in their geographic region. Obviously, one person doth not a trend make, but with Google's huge reach and access to data, they are able to aggregate the volume of searches for specific terms and drill-down that volume to specific geographic locations. Google quickly realized that just from the tracking of search terms and volume, they were able to gain a 1-2 week lead in determining where the influenza virus was going.

"One thing we found last year when we validated this model is it tended to predict surveillance data," said Dr. Lyn Finelli, chief of influenza surveillance at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

"The data are really, really timely. They were able to tell us on a day-to-day basis the relative direction of flu activity for a given area. They were about a week ahead of us. They could be used … as an early warning signal for flu activity."

Great work from the folks in Mountain View to be sure. As of the writing of this post, the Google Flu Trends tool only worked for the U.S., but Google has been steadfast in their desire to expand this tool to include other countries and even other diseases.

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