Crowd-sourced cold surveillance: This smartphone app may help better predict flu outbreaks
Summary
UW-Madison professor Dr. Ajay Sethi and doctoral student Christine Muganda want to know if a smartphone app and social engagement can better predict a flu outbreak than the old-school method of clinic-based reporting. The app asks a few basic questions like, “how are you feeling,” and in exchange students can collect points toward a raffle drawing for their participation. Traditionally, the CDC has tracked flu outbreaks based on the number of patients walking into clinics with influenza-like symptoms. But the UW researchers point to a Google study that they claim identified epidemic flu in the U.S. a full two weeks before the CDC could. However, without context, those Google studies based solely off data weren’t exactly better than what the CDC could report from actually seeing patients in person.
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