Comparing Prescription Sales, Google Trends and CDC Data as Flu Activity Indicators

Authors

  • Avinash Patwardhan Clinical Affairs, Walgreen Co.
  • David Lorber Clinical Affairs, Walgreen Co.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v5i1.4377

Abstract

This study compared prescription sales data from a large retail pharmacy chain in the United States with Google Flu trends and US Outpatient ILI Surveillance Network data for 2007 by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a flu activity indicator. For Google trends the correlation coefficient (Pearson ‘r’ ) for five years aggregate data (2007-2011) was 0.92 (95% CI, 0.90-0.94, P = 0.05) and for each of the five years between 2007 and 2011 were 0.85, 0.92, 0.91, 0.88, and 0.87 respectively. For CDC data the same was 0.97 (95% CI, 0.95-0.98, P = 0.05).

Author Biography

Avinash Patwardhan, Clinical Affairs, Walgreen Co.

Avinash Patwardhan has a MD in General Practice. He has a Master's in health education, is a CHES and a fellow of American Institute of Stress. For 32 years in health care industry, he has a background of 18 years in clinical practice and 14 years in health outcomes research. David Lorber MD is board certified in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Disease. With 40 years in health care, he has expertise in many areas including clinical product development and e-business initiative. He has occupied numerous distinguished positions. He has also served on the pulmonology expert committee, therapeutic decision making expert committee and the Medicare Model guidelines Committeeof United States Pharmacopeia, as well as the stakeholders committee for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

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Published

2013-03-22

How to Cite

Patwardhan, A., & Lorber, D. (2013). Comparing Prescription Sales, Google Trends and CDC Data as Flu Activity Indicators. Online Journal of Public Health Informatics, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.5210/ojphi.v5i1.4377

Issue

Section

Oral Presentations: Influenza Surveillance Methods - Research