RightHealth Daily Dose » tracking http://dailydose.righthealth.com We feature the one health item you simply cannot afford to miss. Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:18:31 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Google Tracks The Flu http://dailydose.righthealth.com/infectious-diseases/google-tracks-the-flu/ http://dailydose.righthealth.com/infectious-diseases/google-tracks-the-flu/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:48:32 +0000 Steven http://dailydose.kosmix.com/?p=767 Google released a flu tracking tool this week called Flu Trends. According to Google, certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. By looking at aggregated search data related to the topic of “flu” Google claims they can estimate flu activity in a particular region two weeks faster than traditional tracking systems. This is because people tend to search for health information relatively early on in their illness, whereas traditional tracking systems rely on data collected after the patient has sought medical attention. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the Google data appears to accurately correlate with CDC data. Earlier warnings allows the medical community to prepare for an increase in sickness and gives people time to get vaccinated, if they haven’t already.

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