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- Title
Use of a Digital Health Application for Influenza Surveillance in China.
- Authors
Hswen, Yulin; Brownstein, John S.; Liu, Jeremiah; Hawkins, Jared B.
- Abstract
Objectives. To examine whether a commercial digital health application could support influenza surveillance in China. Methods. We retrieved data from the Thermia online and mobile educational tool, which allows parents to monitor their children's fever and infectious febrile illnesses including influenza. We modeled monthly aggregated influenza-like illness case counts from Thermia users over time and compared them against influenza monthly case counts obtained from the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China by using time series regression analysis. We retrieved 44 999 observations from January 2014 through July 2016 from Thermia China. Results. Thermia appeared to predict influenza outbreaks 1 month earlier than the National Health and Family Planning Commission influenza surveillance system (P = .046). Being younger, not having up-to-date immunizations, and having an underlying health condition were associated with participant-reported influenza-like illness. Conclusions. Digital health applications could supplement traditional influenza surveillance systems in China by providing access to consumers' symptom reporting. Growing popularity and use of commercial digital health applications in China potentially affords opportunities to support disease detection and monitoring and rapid treatment mobilization.
- Subjects
CHINA; INFLUENZA; PUBLIC health surveillance; DIGITAL technology; PARENT-child relationships; FEVER in children; CHINA. National Health &; Family Planning Commission; SOCIAL media in medicine; INFECTION in children; PATIENTS; MOBILE apps; REGRESSION analysis; COMPARATIVE studies; FORECASTING; PROBABILITY theory; TIME series analysis; ACCESS to information
- Publication
American Journal of Public Health, 2017, Vol 107, Issue 7, p1130
- ISSN
0090-0036
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2105/AJPH.2017.303767