Improved state-level influenza nowcasting in the United States leveraging Internet-based data and network approaches.

ABSTRACT: In the presence of health threats, precision public health approaches aim to provide targeted, timely, and population-specific interventions. Accurate surveillance methodologies that can estimate infectious disease activity ahead of official healthcare-based reports, at relevant spatial resolutions, are important for achieving this goal. Here we introduce a methodological framework which dynamically combines two distinct influenza tracking techniques, using an ensemble machine learning approach, to achieve improved state-level influenza activity estimates in the United States. The two predictive techniques behind the ensemble utilize (1) a self-correcting statistical method combining influenza-related Google search frequencies, information from electronic health records, and historical flu

SUBMITTER: Lu FS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6329822 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature