Google Catches Flu

For years, Google has used search queries to calculate business, marketing, and entertainment trends around the country; since 2006, ordinary users have been able to access these data and see what the population is interested in at any given time to measure the country's collective fears and desires. Now, the company has put this information to work combating one of the most persistent and often lethal problems in America: the common flu.

Working with the Centers for Disease Control, Google tracked search queries for influenza symptoms and other terms related to the disease and correlated them with outbreaks of the flu going back five years. Now, Google has released Google Flu Trends, a service that tracks the outbreak of the flu from day to day and state by state. The CDC already tracks such data, relying on hospital and emergency-room admissions. But such information is typically two weeks behind the times, and not easily accessible by the ordinary citizen. With Google Flu Trends, users can now see where the flu, which kills 36,000 Americans a year, is breaking out in real time. As of today, for example, flu activity is low but expected to rise through December, dip a bit in January, and rise once more through February and March. Early flu outbreaks have hit Hawaii, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maine.

According to the New York Times, public health officials are cautiously hopeful about the service, provided Google releases data about how the information is gathered. And, in fact, the journal Nature will soon publish a study on how Google's information is compiled. For those who are worried about their personal privacy, Google has only collected aggregate searches, with no breakdown for individual search queries. If the data prove accurate and the medical establishment takes advantage of it, this service could help implement prevention and health measures that could save lives and tamp down the flu's seasonal misery.