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Searching for better flu surveillance? A brief communication arising from Ginsberg et al. Nature 457, 1012-1014 (2009)

Donald R. Olson¹, Atar Baer², Michael A. Coletta³, Lana Deyneka⁴, Ryan Gentry⁵, Amy Ising⁶, Erin L. Murray⁷, Marc Paladini⁷, Justin Pendarvis⁸, Karl Soetebier⁹, Kevin J. Konty⁷, Jill Schulmann¹⁰, Jeffrey Engel⁴, Julia Gunn⁸, Robert T. Rolfs¹¹ & Farzad Mostashari⁷

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1. International Society for Disease Surveillance
2. Public Health - Seattle & King County
3. Virginia Department of Health
4. North Carolina Division of Public Health
5. Indiana Department of Health
6. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
7. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
8. Boston Public Health Commission
9. Georgia Division of Public Health
10. Markle Foundation
11. Utah Department of Health

DOC (2.4 MB) PDF (1 MB)

Document Type:

Manuscript

Date:

Received 28 July 2009 19:16 UTC; Posted 05 August 2009

Subjects:

Microbiology, Bioinformatics

Tags:

• Influenza
• surveillance
• internet search queries

Abstract:

Through retrospectively analyzing billions of internet search queries, Ginsberg et al. identified a collection of specific searches that track the course of influenza-like illness (ILI) reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Prospective monitoring during 2007-2008 found high correlation between Google estimates and CDC-reported ILI, with next-day timeliness compared to the 1-2 week delay reported in traditional CDC ILI surveillance. The assertion by Ginsberg et al., however, that internet search term estimates enable public health officials to respond better to seasonal and pandemic influenza does not take into account the current practice of public health, or the state of the art in electronic disease surveillance.

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This document is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

How to cite this document:

Olson, Donald, Baer, Atar, Coletta, Michael , Deyneka, Lana , Gentry, Ryan , Ising, Amy , Murray, Erin , Paladini, Marc , Pendarvis, Justin , Soetebier, Karl , Konty, Kevin, Schulmann, Jill , Engel, Jeffrey , Gunn, Julia , Rolfs, Robert , and Mostashari, Farzad . Searching for better flu surveillance? A brief communication arising from Ginsberg et al. Nature 457, 1012-1014 (2009). Available from Nature Precedings <http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npre.2009.3493.1> (2009)

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