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Volume 15, Number 8—August 2009
Letter

More Diseases Tracked by Using Google Trends

Camille PelatComments to Author , Clément Turbelin, Avner Bar-Hen, Antoine Flahault, and Alain-Jacques Valleron
Author affiliations: Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Paris, France (C. Pelat, C. Turbelin, A.-J. Valleron); Université Pierre et Marie Curie–Paris 6, Paris (C. Pelat, C. Turbelin, A.-J. Valleron); Université Paris Descartes, Paris (A. Bar-Hen); École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique, Paris (A. Flahault)

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Appendix Figure

Time series of search queries plotted along the incidence of 3 diseases (influenza-like illness, gastroenteritis, and chickenpox), 2004-2008. Black lines show trends of search fractions containing the French words for influenza (A), gastroenteritis (B), and chickenpox (C). Red lines show incidence rates for the 3 corresponding diseases (influenza-like illness, acute diarrhea, and chickenpox). Search fractions are scaled between 0 and 100 by Google Insights for Search's internal processes (5). In

Appendix Figure. Time series of search queries plotted along the incidence of 3 diseases (influenza-like illness, gastroenteritis, and chickenpox), 2004-2008. Black lines show trends of search fractions containing the French words for influenza (A), gastroenteritis (B), and chickenpox (C). Red lines show incidence rates for the 3 corresponding diseases (influenza-like illness, acute diarrhea, and chickenpox). Search fractions are scaled between 0 and 100 by Google Insights for Search's internal processes (5). Incidence rates are expressed in no. cases for 100,000 inhabitants, as provided by the Sentinel Network (4).

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References
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  5. Google insights for search, 2009 [cited 2009 Feb 27]. Available from http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

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Page updated: November 05, 2010
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