Doctors may soon find themselves checking Google more frequently not out of idleness, but as a tool to keep current on flu epidemics. Google Flu Trends is a service that predicts upcoming patterns of flu prevalence by tracking how often people conduct Internet searches for flu-related items. Unlike flu reports released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which collect official data that can take weeks to analyze and distribute, Google Flu Trends is updated on a daily basis and provides doctors with this information immediately.
In fact, a recent report in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that this new Google service predicts flu patient volume with a high degree of accuracy. Over 21 months, Baltimore researchers compared flu statistics from the Google service to data from their own local hospitals, including both emergency room visits and lab tests for influenza. They found a strong correlation between the Google data and the actual number of positive flu tests, as well as the number of pediatric emergency room visits. There was a more modest correlation with adult emergency room visits.
This is an interesting yet simple use of a common technology that is accessible to everyone, says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. If further studies support the usefulness and accuracy of this method, this type of early warning system for flu outbreaks could really benefit public health efforts to prepare for and handle flu epidemics.