Google offers flu-tracking tool
The tool developed by Google.org, the company’s philanthropic department, uses search terms that are commonly entered into the Internet to work out possible flu clusters
Google has created a new tool that will help track illness, a development that could put in place early warning and control measures for flu outbreaks. The tool developed by Google.org, the company’s philanthropic department, uses search terms that are commonly entered into the Internet to work out possible flu clusters. “This is an example where Google can use the incredible systems that we have to come up with an interesting, predictive result,” said Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO.
“Flu trends” is based on the idea that people who feel sick will probably turn to the Internet for information by searching for terms such as muscle aches, thermometer and chest congestion, etc. “One thing we found last year when we validated this model is it tended to predict surveillance data. The data are really, really timely,” said Dr. Lyn Finelli, chief of influenza surveillance at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States. It tracks their ebb and flow, broken down by regions and states that can be notified to a central data control unit as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States.
