Google Flu Trends: Spatial Correlation with Influenza Emergency Department Visits

GFT is a surveillance tool that gathers data on local internet searches to estimate the emergence of influenza-like illness in a given geographic location in real time.3 Previously, GFT has been proven to strongly correlate with influenza incidence at the national and regional level.2,3 GFT has shown promise as an easily accessed tool to enhance influenza surveillance and forecasting; however, further geographic validation of city-level data is needed. 1,2,6

Objective

To test if Google Flu Trends (GFT) is predictive of the volume of influenza and pneumonia emergency department (ED) visits across multiple United States cities.