Google monitors influenza trends in New Zealand

Google monitors influenza trends in New Zealand

As the flu season kicks off in the southern hemisphere, Google announces the launch of Google Flu Trends for New Zealand.

Google Flu Trends - www.google.org/flutrends - which launched in the US last year, resulted from our observation that certain flu-related search queries are common during flu season, and that searches for flu-related topics are closely correlated to the actual spread of flu. If we tally each day's flu-related search queries, we can estimate how many people have a flu-like illness.

While some traditional flu tracking systems may take days or weeks to collect and release data, Google search queries can be counted immediately. As a result, Google Flu Trends can be updated daily and may provide early detection of flu outbreaks.

To create Google Flu Trends for New Zealand, we worked with historical seasonal flu data from the WHO National Influenza Centre at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Health, as well as our own anonymised, aggregated historical search data, to build a flu model for New Zealand, broken out by North and South Island.

Upon building this model, we found that our historical Google search data correlated well with the National Influenza Centre's historical data in terms of flu activity in past years. As the season unfolds this year, we'll be watching to see how well our flu model performs compared with these existing surveillance systems.

Dr Matthew Peacey from ESR, said: "The development of Google Flu Trends for New Zealand provides an additional tool for the Centre's comprehensive surveillance efforts. Whilst Google Flu Trends cannot replace WHO influenza network surveillance, this does provide an indication of influenza trends that complements our enhanced surveillance put in place to meet the country's needs, particularly during this novel influenza A/H1N1 outbreak."

The Ministry of Health estimates that influenza affects up to 20% of New Zealanders each year, leading to hundreds of hospitalisations and sometimes deaths. Early detection is critical to helping health officials respond more quickly and save lives.

We hope this information complements existing flu surveillance efforts and proves useful for individuals and public health organisations.

Influenza fast facts from www.moh.govt.nz/influenza

• Influenza is a significant public health issue in New Zealand. Each year it has a large impact on our community, with 10-20% of New Zealanders infected (380,000-760,000 people)
¨ On average, 2.7% of the population (53,000 to 156,000 people) will consult a GP because of influenza each year
¨ 266 to 874 New Zealanders end up in hospital each year because of influenza
¨ 4 to 95 New Zealanders could die as a result of being infected with influenza. This is likely to be an underestimate with the actual excess mortality being much greater
• Influenza is a significant public health issue in New Zealand, not only in terms of morbidity and mortality, but in its financial impact, and its potential to overwhelm both primary care and hospital services during epidemics in the winter months.

ENDS

© Scoop Media