Correlation between national influenza surveillance data and google trends in South Korea.

Abstract

BackgroundIn South Korea, there is currently no syndromic surveillance system using internet search data, including Google Flu Trends. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between national influenza surveillance data and Google Trends in South Korea.MethodsOur study was based on a publicly available search engine database, Google Trends, using 12 influenza-related queries, from September 9, 2007 to September 8, 2012. National surveillance data were obtained from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) influenza-like illness (ILI) and virologic surveillance system. Pearson's correlation coefficients were calculated to compare the national surveillance and the Google Trends data for the overall period and for 5 influenza seasons.ResultsThe correlation coefficient between the KCDC ILI and virologic surveillance data was 0.72 (pConclusionsIn our study, we found that the Google Trends for certain queries using the survey on influenza correlated with national surveillance data in South Korea. The results of this study showed that Google Trends in the Korean language can be used as complementary data for influenza surveillance but was insufficient for the use of predictive models, such as Google Flu Trends.