Google Flu Trends to Estimate Flu Activity in US
November 12, 2008 by Peggy Rowland
Filed under Women's Health
Google is going to use your search terms to help estimate flu activity by US state.
How?
They know what state you’re in already, and they think flu-related searches are good predictors that the flu’s going down. Well, some people like me search health topics just for fun, but maybe they’re mostly right on this one.
Google believes that their new Google Flu Trends will estimate flu activity up to two weeks faster than traditional flu surveillance systems.
In the past, Google has compared its flu predictions with those from systems used by the CDC, and Google was close on the money and faster. They’re hoping to see similar findings in the future. The CDC collaborated with Google in developing Flu Trends. Read a CNN interview with the lead engineer for Flu Trends.
How do you feel about your Google search terms being used to predict flu activity?
Image via stock.xchng
