What if Google knew before anyone else that a flu outbreak was putting you at heightened risk of getting sick? And what if it could alert you, your doctor and your local public health officials before the muscle aches and chills kicked in?
That, in essence, is the promise of Google Flu Trends, a Web tool that Google.org, the company’s philanthropic unit, announced Tuesday, just as the flu season was starting.
Google Flu Trends is based on the idea that people feeling sick are likely to turn to the Web for information, searching on Google for phrases like “flu symptoms” or “muscle aches.” Google Flu Trends tracks such queries and charts their ebb and flow, broken down by regions across the United States.
Google.org said this first version of Google Flu Trends “is just a start” and it hoped to “explore other countries, languages, and diseases in the future.”
Early tests suggest that the service might be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu between a week and 10 days before they are reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some public health experts say that could help accelerate the response of doctors, hospitals and public health officials to a nasty flu season, reducing the spread of the disease and, potentially, saving lives.
It could also offer a dose of comfort to stricken individuals in knowing that a bug is going around.
“This could conceivably provide as early a warning of an outbreak as any system,” said Lyn Finelli of the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The earlier the warning, the earlier prevention and control measures can be put in place, and this could prevent cases of influenza,” Finelli said.
Between 5 percent and 20 percent of the population of the United States contracts the flu each year, Finelli said,…