Flu Correlations

With Flu Correlations you can:

* Interactively observe flu trends worldwide or in a specific region as far back as 10 years ago.
* View web, news, blog, discussion, twitter, video, cdc web, and cdc podcasts published at the time and place of your data selection.
* Find correlations between Flu data and world events.
* Identify causative mechanisms and suggest locale-specific improvements in prevention and treatment strategies.

This app was developed to demonstrate two concepts.
The first is that simple, modular solutions can sometimes produce great yields (think nuclear energy). Consider also that this app can easily be altered to suit any data set, yet was published solely in the interest of Flu awareness.

The second concept is a novel one. The ever-expanding wealth of information available on the internet has yet to be parsed for correlations between media events and consumer health. Tools such as this one seek to turn medical research into an on-the-go, interactive experience that can take place anywhere, anytime, and by anyone."

Graph: Displays Flu activity levels for the given region and given date range. Place two fingers on the screen to select a date range and then double-tap to zoom in. (alternatively use the manual Date Range Button)

Country Button: Select a country from the drop-down list to graph its activity.

Region Button: Select a state / province from the drop-down list to graph its activity.

Date Range Button: Select a start date and an end date for the graph to display.

Max Range Button: Zoom out to the maximum available data for the currently selected region.

Media Buttons: Click a media icon on the bottom of the screen to open a web page displaying Flu-related media regarding the selected date range and region (if appropriate). Note that Twitter information has only been indexed from 1/1/2011 and on at the time this app was published.

Try it yourself: select a region and a date range that might correspond to a known event, narrow your date range to the time period preceding the spike, and see how quickly you can gather causative information."

Data Sets Used
Graph:
Google Flu Trends
http://www.google.org/flutrends/

Media Buttons:
Google Web
Google News
Google Blogs
Google Discussions
Google Realtime (Twitter Index)
Google Video
CDC Web
www.cdc.gov
CDC Podcasts
http://www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/

Author:
Omar Samarah
University of Kansas
School of Medicine
M1 Medical Student
osamarah@kumc.edu

Theodore Chang
Northeastern University
Pre-medical Student
chang.th@husky.neu.edu

CDC Flu App Challenge Submission
5/27/2011
http://fluapp.challenge.gov/
www.cdc.gov