A combination of Google search data and government-supplied clinical data can be used to accurately track mosquito-born illnesses like Dengue fever in developing countries, researchers at Harvard University recently found.
Researchers used Google Trends to track the top 10 dengue related search terms in Mexico, Brazil, Thailand, Singapore and Taiwan over the course of the study period. The data was combined with historical clinical data in a modeling tool known as AutoRegression with Google search queries (ARGO), which then calculated real-time dengue prevalence estimates.
Researchers found that ARGO returned more reliable estimates in Mexico, Brazil, Thailand and Singapore than other dengue fever tracking methods used in those countries. Estimates were less accurate in Taiwan, scientists believe, because of less consistent year-over disease patterns there.
“The wide availability of internet throughout the globe provides the potential for an alternative way to reliably track infectious diseases, such as dengue, faster than traditional clinical-based systems,” Mauricio Santillana of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School said. “This alternative way of tracking disease could be used to alert governments and hospitals when elevated dengue incidence is anticipated, and provide safety information for travelers.”
Future research could focus on whether the same method could be used to track environmental data like temperature, or to better track diseases on finer spatial and temporal scales.