Wikipedia Usage Estimates Prevalence of Influenza-Like Illness in Near Real-Time
Authors | David J McIver John S. Brownstein |
|---|---|
Publication date | 2015 |
DOI | 10.5210/ojphi.v7i1.5705 |
Links | Original |
Wikipedia Usage Estimates Prevalence of Influenza-Like Illness in Near Real-Time - scientific work related to Wikipedia quality published in 2015, written by David J McIver and John S. Brownstein.
Overview
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.
