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Influenza Forecasting with Google Flu Trends

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Freyer Dugas
  • Mehdi Jalalpour
  • Yulia Gel
  • Scott Levin
  • Fred Torcaso
  • Takeru Igusa
  • Richard E Rothman

Abstract

Background: We developed a practical influenza forecast model based on real-time, geographically focused, and easy to access data, designed to provide individual medical centers with advanced warning of the expected number of influenza cases, thus allowing for sufficient time to implement interventions. Secondly, we evaluated the effects of incorporating a real-time influenza surveillance system, Google Flu Trends, and meteorological and temporal information on forecast accuracy. Methods: Forecast models designed to predict one week in advance were developed from weekly counts of confirmed influenza cases over seven seasons (2004–2011) divided into seven training and out-of-sample verification sets. Forecasting procedures using classical Box-Jenkins, generalized linear models (GLM), and generalized linear autoregressive moving average (GARMA) methods were employed to develop the final model and assess the relative contribution of external variables such as, Google Flu Trends, meteorological data, and temporal information. Results: A GARMA(3,0) forecast model with Negative Binomial distribution integrating Google Flu Trends information provided the most accurate influenza case predictions. The model, on the average, predicts weekly influenza cases during 7 out-of-sample outbreaks within 7 cases for 83% of estimates. Google Flu Trend data was the only source of external information to provide statistically significant forecast improvements over the base model in four of the seven out-of-sample verification sets. Overall, the p-value of adding this external information to the model is 0.0005. The other exogenous variables did not yield a statistically significant improvement in any of the verification sets. Conclusions: Integer-valued autoregression of influenza cases provides a strong base forecast model, which is enhanced by the addition of Google Flu Trends confirming the predictive capabilities of search query based syndromic surveillance. This accessible and flexible forecast model can be used by individual medical centers to provide advanced warning of future influenza cases.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Freyer Dugas & Mehdi Jalalpour & Yulia Gel & Scott Levin & Fred Torcaso & Takeru Igusa & Richard E Rothman, 2013. "Influenza Forecasting with Google Flu Trends," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(2), pages 1-7, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0056176
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0056176
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    1. Jichang Dong & Wei Dai & Ying Liu & Lean Yu & Jie Wang, 2019. "Forecasting Chinese Stock Market Prices using Baidu Search Index with a Learning-Based Data Collection Method," International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making (IJITDM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 18(05), pages 1605-1629, September.
    2. Feng Dong & Shengnan Zhang & Jiao Zhu & Jiaojiao Sun, 2021. "The Impact of the Integrated Development of AI and Energy Industry on Regional Energy Industry: A Case of China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(17), pages 1-24, August.
    3. Symitsi, Efthymia & Markellos, Raphael N. & Mantrala, Murali K., 2022. "Keyword portfolio optimization in paid search advertising," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 303(2), pages 767-778.
    4. Martina Halouskov'a & Daniel Stav{s}ek & Mat'uv{s} Horv'ath, 2022. "The role of investor attention in global asset price variation during the invasion of Ukraine," Papers 2205.05985, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    5. Halousková, Martina & Stašek, Daniel & Horváth, Matúš, 2022. "The role of investor attention in global asset price variation during the invasion of Ukraine," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    6. Linying Yang & Teng Zhang & Peter Glynn & David Scheinker, 2021. "The development and deployment of a model for hospital-level COVID-19 associated patient demand intervals from consistent estimators (DICE)," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 375-401, June.
    7. Sangwon Chae & Sungjun Kwon & Donghyun Lee, 2018. "Predicting Infectious Disease Using Deep Learning and Big Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-20, July.
    8. Fantazzini, Dean, 2020. "Short-term forecasting of the COVID-19 pandemic using Google Trends data: Evidence from 158 countries," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 59, pages 33-54.
    9. Daniel Alejandro Gónzalez-Bandala & Juan Carlos Cuevas-Tello & Daniel E. Noyola & Andreu Comas-García & Christian A García-Sepúlveda, 2020. "Computational Forecasting Methodology for Acute Respiratory Infectious Disease Dynamics," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-20, June.
    10. Dan Liu & Songjing Guo & Mingjun Zou & Cong Chen & Fei Deng & Zhong Xie & Sheng Hu & Liang Wu, 2019. "A dengue fever predicting model based on Baidu search index data and climate data in South China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(12), pages 1-16, December.
    11. Chris Allen & Ming-Hsiang Tsou & Anoshe Aslam & Anna Nagel & Jean-Mark Gawron, 2016. "Applying GIS and Machine Learning Methods to Twitter Data for Multiscale Surveillance of Influenza," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-10, July.
    12. Livio Fenga, 2020. "Filtering and prediction of noisy and unstable signals: The case of Google Trends data," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 281-295, March.
    13. Qingguo Ma & Wuke Zhang, 2015. "Public Mood and Consumption Choices: Evidence from Sales of Sony Cameras on Taobao," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-11, April.
    14. Mansour Ebrahimi & Parisa Aghagolzadeh & Narges Shamabadi & Ahmad Tahmasebi & Mohammed Alsharifi & David L Adelson & Farhid Hemmatzadeh & Esmaeil Ebrahimie, 2014. "Understanding the Underlying Mechanism of HA-Subtyping in the Level of Physic-Chemical Characteristics of Protein," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(5), pages 1-14, May.
    15. Logan C Brooks & David C Farrow & Sangwon Hyun & Ryan J Tibshirani & Roni Rosenfeld, 2018. "Nonmechanistic forecasts of seasonal influenza with iterative one-week-ahead distributions," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-29, June.
    16. Baek, Changryong & Davis, Richard A. & Pipiras, Vladas, 2017. "Sparse seasonal and periodic vector autoregressive modeling," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 103-126.
    17. Zeynep Ertem & Dorrie Raymond & Lauren Ancel Meyers, 2018. "Optimal multi-source forecasting of seasonal influenza," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-16, September.
    18. Victor Olsavszky & Mihnea Dosius & Cristian Vladescu & Johannes Benecke, 2020. "Time Series Analysis and Forecasting with Automated Machine Learning on a National ICD-10 Database," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-17, July.
    19. Jose L Herrera & Ravi Srinivasan & John S Brownstein & Alison P Galvani & Lauren Ancel Meyers, 2016. "Disease Surveillance on Complex Social Networks," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-16, July.
    20. Ibrahim Musa & Hyun Woo Park & Lkhagvadorj Munkhdalai & Keun Ho Ryu, 2018. "Global Research on Syndromic Surveillance from 1993 to 2017: Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-20, September.
    21. Logan C Brooks & David C Farrow & Sangwon Hyun & Ryan J Tibshirani & Roni Rosenfeld, 2015. "Flexible Modeling of Epidemics with an Empirical Bayes Framework," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-18, August.
    22. Ulrich Gunter & Irem Önder & Stefan Gindl, 2019. "Exploring the predictive ability of LIKES of posts on the Facebook pages of four major city DMOs in Austria," Tourism Economics, , vol. 25(3), pages 375-401, May.
    23. Tian-Shyug Lee & I-Fei Chen & Ting-Jen Chang & Chi-Jie Lu, 2020. "Forecasting Weekly Influenza Outpatient Visits Using a Two-Dimensional Hierarchical Decision Tree Scheme," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-15, July.
    24. Kookjin Lee & Jaideep Ray & Cosmin Safta, 2021. "The predictive skill of convolutional neural networks models for disease forecasting," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(7), pages 1-26, July.
    25. Nicolás Gonzálvez‐Gallego & María Concepción Pérez‐Cárceles & Laura Nieto‐Torrejón, 2024. "Do search queries predict violence against women? A forecasting model based on Google Trends," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(5), pages 1607-1614, August.

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