Output details
11 - Computer Science and Informatics
University of Greenwich
#Swineflu: Twitter predicts swine flu outbreak in 2009
This paper describes the first published analysis of the potential of social networking websites to predict disease outbreaks. This work received international press coverage from over 30 outlets (e.g. The Telegraph, The Times of India), was featured by the HPA and BMJ and has been presented at 10 further international conferences (e.g. ESCAIDE, MedInfo). In collaboration with City University, follow on work indicates that this technique can predict swine flu outbreaks up to 1 week faster than traditional methods. Complementary work with the University of Manchester, investigating hay fever seasons is to be presented at the GRF One Health Summit.