Comparison: Flu prescription sales data from a retail pharmacy in the US with Google Flu trends and US ILINet (CDC) data as flu activity indicator - PubMed (original) (raw)
Comparative Study
Comparison: Flu prescription sales data from a retail pharmacy in the US with Google Flu trends and US ILINet (CDC) data as flu activity indicator
Avinash Patwardhan et al. PLoS One. 2012.
Abstract
The potential threat of bioterrorism along with the emergence of new or existing drug resistant strains of influenza virus, added to expanded global travel, have increased vulnerability to epidemics or pandemics and their aftermath. The same factors have also precipitated urgency for having better, faster, sensitive, and reliable syndromic surveillance systems. Prescription sales data can provide surrogate information about the development of infectious diseases and therefore serve as a useful tool in syndromic surveillance. This study compared prescription sales data from a large drug retailing pharmacy chain in the United States with Google Flu trends surveillance system data as a flu activity indicator. It was found that the two were highly correlated. The correlation coefficient (Pearson 'r') for five years' aggregate data (2007-2011) was 0.92 (95% CI, 0.90-0.94). The correlation coefficients for each of the five years between 2007 and 2011 were 0.85, 0.92, 0.91, 0.88, and 0.87 respectively. Additionally, prescription sales data from the same large drug retailing pharmacy chain in the United States were also compared with US Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network (ILINet) data for 2007 by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The correlation coefficient (Pearson 'r') was 0.97 (95% CI, 0.95-0.98).
Conflict of interest statement
Competing Interests: Both the authors are full time employees of Walgreen Co. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.
Figures
Figure 1. Google ILI versus retail drug chain influenza scripts: Trends: 2007 through 2011.
The comparative graphic representation of the Google ILI data as cases per 100,000 physicians visits for five years (2007–2011) and aggregate counts of scripts for four drugs commonly prescribed for influenza namely: Amantadine, Oseltamivir, Rimantadine, and Zanamivir from a large drug retailing pharmacy chain in the United States expressed as scripts per 100,000 total scripts for five years (2007–2011) after log transformation.
References
- Henning KJ (2004) Overview of syndromic surveillance. What is syndromic surveillance. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 53: 5–11. - PubMed
- CDC (2004) Framework for evaluating public health surveillance systems for early detection of outbreaks: recommendations from the CDC working group. MMWR 53 (No. RR-5) - PubMed
- Foldy SL (2004) Linking better surveillance to better outcomes. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 53: 12–17. - PubMed
- Buehler JW (2004) Review of the 2003 National Syndromic Surveillance Conference—Lessons Learned and Questions To Be Answered. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 53: 18–22. - PubMed
Publication types
MeSH terms
Substances
Grants and funding
This research was funded by Walgreen Co. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Medical