Google updates flu trends, Microsoft lets you play (flu) doctor
(NECN: Ted McEnroe) – Unless you have been living alone on a deserted island, it’s been hard to miss the stream of updates on H1N1 flu. The good news, if you’re alone on an island, you’re probably safe – but for the rest of us, there are some new flu resources on the web getting upgrades this morning. We start with Google Flu Trends, which looks at what people are searching for as a way to detect an uptick in flu season. The service has been expanded to 16 new countries, including much of Europe. Mexico, Australia and New Zealand are all also part of the trends data now. Google says its data has nailed flu outbreaks two weeks faster than data collected by the Centers for Disease Control, breaking down the severity of flu in states by detecting what topics people are searching. And somehow, engineers say, the algorithm discounts interest triggered by news reports. “An important aspect of Google Flu Trends is that we filter out terms that may be popular because people hear about them in the news,” say Matt Mohebbi and Dan Vanderkam on the official Google blog. So that tells you where flu is, but do you have it? The folks at Microsoft have launched a swine flu self-assessment tool in conjunction with Emory University in Atlanta to let people get a basic sense of whether what they have is indeed H1N1. The quiz is awfully simple (“Do you have a fever over 100.4 degrees?” Do you have a sore throat?”), and it doesn’t actually tell you if you have H1N1, only that you “probably” have the flu and whether you are “very sick”. Answer yes to both of the questions above and you probably have the flu. Answer yes to any other questions about nausea, difficulty breathing or preexisting conditions and the advice becomes “see your doctor.” Microsoft also has another motive. The quiz is also a way to get people to set up a Microsoft HealthVault account, because they can save their quiz results there. Microsoft pitches HealthVault as “a security-enhanced free online service designed to put people in control of their health information and enable them to share it with those they trust. People can use HealthVault to store copies of their family’s health records obtained from providers, health plans, and pharmacies; exchange data with other health applications; and upload data from devices. You don’t have to create an account to see your results. Don’t want Microsoft to know how you’re feeling? You can also tell the government! The White House announced yesterday that the government flu resource at flu.gov has been updated with a myths and facts section and yes, its own self-assessment form. It’s basically the same assessment. (Whether it’s accurate, hard to say.) Other (more?) useful items on the site are listings of local resources and the myths and facts section, which notes that H1N1 vaccination is voluntary, is being provided free to states (so if you’re getting charged a high fee someone is scamming you), and reminds people that a single dose, not two, will be required for immunization. If you don’t trust government information, there’s not much here that would change your mind, but it is a pretty good clearinghouse for resources from the CDC and elsewhere on the H1N1 and seasonal flu.
