Google Flu Trends to be driven by new engine in upcoming season

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google Flu Trends is getting a new engine to improve accuracy, according to a blog posted Friday by Christian Stefansen, Google senior software engineer. 

 

"For the 2014/2015 season, we’re launching a new Flu Trends model in the U.S. that ... takes official CDC flu data into account as the flu season progresses," he wrote. "We’ll publish the details in a technical paper soon. We look forward to seeing how the new model performs in 2014/2015 and whether this method could be extended to other countries."

 

Google Flu Trends was launched in 2008 using aggregate Web searches to indicate when and where influenza was striking in real time. However, the model overestimated flu levels over the 2012/2013 season. 

 

Google Flu Trends is not designed to replace traditional flu-tracking methods, Stefansen cautioned. "But we do hope it can help alert health professionals to outbreaks early, and in areas without traditional monitoring, give us all better odds against the flu."