Google search data plus machine learning forecast weekly influenza counts across Australian states, with best-model correlation from -0.353 to 0.977
Using weekly Google Trends search volumes for 2018 and 2019 compared against weekly influenza notifications from Australia's National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System (NNDSS), the study fitted four supervised regression models (elastic net, support vector regression, random forest, and feedforward neural network) independently for each state and territory except the Australian Capital Territory, for nowcast and one- and two-week-ahead predictions, finding that search volumes correlate with reported influenza rates over time, that random forest and elastic net generally performed better than the other models, that every modelled jurisdiction except the Northern Territory and Tasmania had at least two search queries with moderate to strong Pearson correlation with influenza notificatio