Wikipedia Usage Estimates Prevalence of Influenza-like Illness in Near Real-Time

Authors

  • David McIver
  • John S. Brownstein

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v7i1.5705

Abstract

Wikipedia usage data has been harnessed to estimate the prevalence of influenza-like illness (ILI) in the US population. By observing the number of times certain key Wikipedia articles are viewed each day, a model was developed that accurately estimated ILI, within 0.27% of official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Additionally, this method was able to accurately determine the week in which ILI peaked 17% more often than Google Flu Trends. This work demonstrates the power of open, freely available data to aid in disease surveillance.

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Published

2015-02-26

How to Cite

McIver, D., & Brownstein, J. S. (2015). Wikipedia Usage Estimates Prevalence of Influenza-like Illness in Near Real-Time. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v7i1.5705

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2015)

Section

Oral Presentations

License

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