Digital Epidemiology Reveals Global Childhood Disease Seasonality and the Effects of Immunization

Kevin M. Bakker; Micaela Elvira Martinez-Bakker; Barbara Helm; Tyler J. Stevenson

doi:10.1073/pnas.1523941113

Digital Epidemiology Reveals Global Childhood Disease Seasonality and the Effects of Immunization

Kevin M. Bakker
, Micaela Elvira Martinez-Bakker
, Barbara Helm
, Tyler J. Stevenson

Aberdeen Centre For Environmental Sustainability

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Princeton University
University of Glasgow

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

68 Citations (Scopus)

20 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Public health surveillance systems are important for tracking disease
dynamics. In recent years, social and real-time digital data
sources have provided new means of studying disease transmission.
Such affordable and accessible data have the potential to offer
new insights into disease epidemiology at national and international
scales. We used the extensive information repository Google
Trends to examine the digital epidemiology of a common childhood
disease, chicken pox, caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV), over an
eleven-year period. We (1) report robust seasonal information seeking
behavior for chicken pox using Google data from 36 countries,
(2) validate Google data using clinical chicken pox cases, (3) demonstrate
that Google data can be used to identify recurrent seasonal
outbreaks and forecast their magnitude and seasonal timing, and (4)
reveal that VZV immunization significantly dampened seasonal cycles
in information seeking behavior. Our findings provide strong
evidence that VZV transmission is seasonal and that seasonal peaks
show remarkable latitudinal variation. We attribute the dampened
seasonal cycles in chicken pox information seeking behavior to VZV
vaccine-induced reduction of seasonal transmission. These data
and the methodological approaches provide a novel way to track the
global burden of childhood disease, and illustrate population-level
effects of immunization. The global latitudinal patterns in outbreak
seasonality could direct future studies of environmental and physiological
drivers of disease transmission.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	6689-6694
Number of pages	6
Journal	PNAS
Volume	113
Issue number	24
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1523941113
Publication status	Published - 14 Jun 2016

Bibliographical note

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
We would like to thank Fernando Gonzalez-Dominguez and Gilberto Vaughan for providing the chicken pox case reports from Mexico, and the Estonia Health Board,
Department of Communicable Disease Surveillance and Control, for Estonian chicken pox case reports. KB would like to thank Mercedes Pascual, her lab, and Marisa Eisenberg for helpful comments. Jesus Cantu (research assistant, Princeton University) translated and categorized chicken pox searches from Mexico, Thailand, Australia, and the US.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

chicken pox
internet search
disease dynamics
forecast modelling
vaccination

Access to Document

10.1073/pnas.1523941113Licence: Other

Accepted ManuscriptAccepted author manuscript, 3.5 MBLicence: Other
Supplementary InformationAccepted author manuscript, 1.05 MBLicence: Other

Cite this

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abstract = "Public health surveillance systems are important for tracking disease dynamics. In recent years, social and real-time digital data sources have provided new means of studying disease transmission. Such affordable and accessible data have the potential to offer new insights into disease epidemiology at national and international scales. We used the extensive information repository Google Trends to examine the digital epidemiology of a common childhood disease, chicken pox, caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV), over an eleven-year period. We (1) report robust seasonal information seeking behavior for chicken pox using Google data from 36 countries, (2) validate Google data using clinical chicken pox cases, (3) demonstrate that Google data can be used to identify recurrent seasonal outbreaks and forecast their magnitude and seasonal timing, and (4) reveal that VZV immunization significantly dampened seasonal cycles in information seeking behavior. Our findings provide strong evidence that VZV transmission is seasonal and that seasonal peaks show remarkable latitudinal variation. We attribute the dampened seasonal cycles in chicken pox information seeking behavior to VZV vaccine-induced reduction of seasonal transmission. These data and the methodological approaches provide a novel way to track the global burden of childhood disease, and illustrate population-level effects of immunization. The global latitudinal patterns in outbreak seasonality could direct future studies of environmental and physiological drivers of disease transmission. ",

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AB - Public health surveillance systems are important for tracking disease dynamics. In recent years, social and real-time digital data sources have provided new means of studying disease transmission. Such affordable and accessible data have the potential to offer new insights into disease epidemiology at national and international scales. We used the extensive information repository Google Trends to examine the digital epidemiology of a common childhood disease, chicken pox, caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV), over an eleven-year period. We (1) report robust seasonal information seeking behavior for chicken pox using Google data from 36 countries, (2) validate Google data using clinical chicken pox cases, (3) demonstrate that Google data can be used to identify recurrent seasonal outbreaks and forecast their magnitude and seasonal timing, and (4) reveal that VZV immunization significantly dampened seasonal cycles in information seeking behavior. Our findings provide strong evidence that VZV transmission is seasonal and that seasonal peaks show remarkable latitudinal variation. We attribute the dampened seasonal cycles in chicken pox information seeking behavior to VZV vaccine-induced reduction of seasonal transmission. These data and the methodological approaches provide a novel way to track the global burden of childhood disease, and illustrate population-level effects of immunization. The global latitudinal patterns in outbreak seasonality could direct future studies of environmental and physiological drivers of disease transmission.

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Digital Epidemiology Reveals Global Childhood Disease Seasonality and the Effects of Immunization

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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