Google Can Predict the Flu

An anonymous reader mentions Google Flu Trends, a newly unveiled initiative of Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm. The claim is that this Web service, which aggregates search data to track outbreaks of influenza, can spot disease trends up to 2 weeks before Centers for Disease Control data can. The NYTimes writeup begins: "What if Google knew before anyone else that a fast-spreading flu outbreak was putting you at heightened risk of getting sick? And what if it could alert you, your doctor and your local public health officials before the muscle aches and chills kicked in? That, in essence, is the promise of Google Flu Trends, a new Web tool ... unveiled on Tuesday, right at the start of flu season in the US. Google Flu Trends is based on the simple idea that people who are feeling sick will tend to turn to the Web for information, typing things like 'flu symptoms; or 'muscle aches' into Google. The service tracks such queries and charts their ebb and flow, broken down by regions and states."

Comments

Damn

[tgd]

Thats a seriously great idea ...

It totally sidesteps the problem of early symptoms not typically getting people to the doctor where it can potentially be reported/tracked.

There's probably a lot of trends that can be detected the same way beyond just disease.

Re:Damn

[flyingsquid]

Oh give me a break! I mean, assume for argument's sake that this technique actually worked. If it actually did, then the recent spike in search terms such as "mysterious virus", "flesh reanimation technology", "revivified corpses: control techniques" and "shotguns" on Google would indicate we're facing a major outbreak of zombies. That's just nonsense.

I'd write more about why this idea won't work, but I'll have to do it tomorrow. Right now I've got a splitting headache, so I'm just going to put some neosporin on that bite I got from the weird guy on the subway train and then head to bed.

Re:Damn

[girlintraining]

You have to break your query down by language and how old it is. See, looking for "massive zombie outbreak" won't get any results if, say, Russia gets overrun by the undead. I mean, what's Russian for "Oh sh*t we're all gonna die!" anyway? And given how often this happens, you really need to sort by date too. I mean, two weeks ago there was a major zombie outbreak. It happened all over the country, like some kind of national holiday. And then the next day everyone was all like "nuhhh--what happened? Where's the aspirin? BrrrrAAAAaaaaIIIiinNNNnnsss" Damn zombie boys... get your own damn brains. *sigh*

Re:Damn

[nizo]

Yeah, because the first thing I am gonna think while running from a horde of zombies is, "Damn, I should go write a Slashdot journal entry about this".

Re:Damn

[Azkedar]

Well, if you RTFA, you'll see that Google's method applied to the past four years very closely mathches trend data collected by physicians in coordination with the CDC. The proof is in the pudding.

Re:Damn

[Facegarden]

It doesn't predict anything reliably. Too many variables.

Simply put: If you're looking for help online for flu symptoms, that doesn't correlate with an 'outbreak' of flu.

And what defines outbreak anyway?

Well, the way flu works, if you have it, you're likely to give it to someone else. You may google about it when you don't actually have it, but how often does that happen? The number of false positive searches would probably be somewhat low, and either way they would be constant. Google serves millions of search results a day, if not more. Almost everything "random" would, over time, look constant. When non-random things happen, like people from a certain region (remember, google knows your IP) getting the flu, even a 1% increase in flu related searches is extremely significant, if it otherwise doesn't vary that much.

YOU googling for flu symptoms doesn't necessarily indicate if you have the flu, but a large increase in the number of people googling it probably does. Especially if you can compare your data to the CDC data, to check your theories.

-Taylor

Re:Damn

[billcopc]

I fail to see the sarcasm in your comment.

future Google services

[bmecoli]

In the future, Google will be able to record your eating habits and predict when you are going to poop.

This, of course, won't work on female users since we all know that girls don't poop.

Re:future Google services

[girlintraining]

yes we do, we just don't make a damn production out of it by telling everyone, then doing it and acting like setting off the smoke alarm gives us extra credit.

Madagascar Closes Down

[jon_cooper]

If Madagascar detects anyone googling "flu" they'll close their ports.

Re:So?

[justinlee37]

You obviously haven't heard much about The 1918 Flu Pandemic