Tracking Flu Season

By Josie Sittig

Fall Season. It's that time of the year again for playing in the leaves, drinking pumpkin spice lattes, aaand getting the flu. Luckily with the introduction of modern analytical tracking data, researchers are starting to be able to predict the beginning of flu season weeks before it even happens- which means you prepare yourself.

Google Flu Trends, a now retired analytics program was created in 2008 to start analyzing US phenomenons by analyzing search queries for specific words such as; coughing and vomiting. In addition to those key words, researchers were also able to see how many times phrases such as 'flu symptoms' were being typed into Google search. After collecting data on online searched keywords, the program would put it next to actual flu data collected in the past for a specific city.

Using the past data collected, researchers could study both sets of data collected to see if the amount of online searches for that current fall season were standard or different compared to the past season. Overall, the estimates the Google researchers received were consistent with the standard analyzing data collected by health agencies who do studies each flu season.

Google Flu Trends also came up with flu data much faster than the health agencies did. With this extra time, doctors and hospitals can prepare vaccines sooner and give more information about each year's flu strain. Although Google Flu Trends hasn't been recording data for the last three years, Google gave Flu and Dengue signal data to institutions specializing in infectious diseases, so that the research could continue.

According to the Center for Disease Control website, it takes six months for them to produce large amounts of influenza vaccines. On top of that, manufacturers need to grow one or more vaccine viruses starting in January (so vaccines can be delivered on time) based on research to determine which viruses will be included in the vaccine.

Hopefully with the advancement of technology, manufacturers will be able to create accurate vaccines and have a shorter manufacturing time period for each flu season. Make sure you go out and get your flu shot this season!

Sources:

Influenza (Flu). (2017, October 06). Retrieved October 20, 2017, from https://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/keyfacts.htm

Helft , M. (2008, November 11). Google Uses Searches to Track Flu's Spread. Retrieved October 19, 2017, from http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/nytimes/2008-11-11_nytimes_google_influenza.pdf