Research of the Correlation between the H1N1 Morbidity Data and Google Trends in Egypt

TL;DR

This study investigates the correlation between Google search data and H1N1 morbidity in Egypt to evaluate the potential of using internet search trends for influenza monitoring in developing countries.

Contribution

It is the first to analyze the correlation between Google Trends and H1N1 data in Egypt, assessing the feasibility of internet-based influenza prediction models in African developing countries.

Findings

Significant correlation found between Google Trends and H1N1 morbidity data.

Demonstrated potential of Google Flu Model for influenza trend prediction in Egypt.

Provides a basis for developing internet-based influenza surveillance systems in similar contexts.

Abstract

The search engine based on influenza monitoring system has been widely applied in many European and American countries. However, there are not any correlative researches reported for African developing countries. Especially, the countries Egypt has not designed an influenza monitoring system on the basis of the Internet search data. This study aims at analyzing the correlation between the Google search data and the H1N1 morbidity data of Egypt, and examining the feasibility of Google Flu Model in predicting the H1N1 influenza trend.