ArticleInfluenza and other respiratory viruses2013
Influenza surveillance in Europe: establishing epidemic thresholds by the moving epidemic method.
Article in Influenza and other respiratory viruses, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 130 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
130 citing papers in PubMed.
- Requirements and Implementation Challenges of Automated Outbreak Detection Systems in the European Union: Mixed Methods Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2026Article
- Subnational Heterogeneity in Respiratory Syncytial Virus Seasonality in Tropical Colombia, 2022-2024.Open forum infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Evaluation of the Automated and Early Detection of Seasonal Epidemic Onset and Burden Levels (AEDSEO) method for respiratory surveillance using data from 21 European countries.Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin · 2026Article
- Applying the Moving Epidemic Method to Emergency Department Syndromic Surveillance to identify the Start of Influenza Seasons in New South Wales, Australia.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2026Article
- A Human Mobility-Based Modeling Study of Influenza Vaccination Strategies Across Socioeconomically Disparate Regions in China.Vaccines · 2026Article
- Spatiotemporal instability of influenza seasonality during viral co-circulation.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2026Article
- Highly Atypical 2025 Influenza A Season in Brazil.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2026Article
- How to ensure effective and sustainable ILI surveillance in Belgian general practices? : protocol.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Article
- Emergency Department Syndromic Surveillance Diagnostic Code Selection for Assessing Severity of Seasonal Influenza in New South Wales, Australia.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2026Article
- Global region-specific influenza early warning by establishing an epidemic intensity threshold system: a modeling study.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Disruption of winter influenza activity in Wuxi, China during and after the COVID-19 pandemic (2013-2025): a counterfactual time-series analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Regional, altitudinal, and age-specific heterogeneity of bronchiolitis hospitalization seasonality in Ecuador, 2007-2024, and implications for RSV immunoprophylaxis timing.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Wastewater-based epidemiology of influenza A virus in Shenzhen: baseline values and implications for multi-pathogen surveillance.Emerging microbes & infections · 2025Article
- Use of the moving epidemic method to guide the launch of palivizumab immunization campaigns for respiratory syncytial virus in Québec, Canada.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2025Article
- Respi-Radar: a tool to monitor respiratory infections, Belgium, winter season 2023/24.Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin · 2025Article
- Establishing Epidemic and Intensity Thresholds After a Major Change in Respiratory Virus Surveillance in Spain in 2020.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2025Article
- Characterisation of the respiratory syncytial virus seasonality and its environmental factors in the Americas-a multi-country observational study using routine surveillance networks.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2025Article
- Unraveling regional variability in Dengue outbreaks in Brazil: leveraging the Moving Epidemics Method (MEM) and climate data to optimize vector control strategies.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- How to assess the severity of bronchiolitis epidemics? Application of the Moving Epidemic Method in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France from 2017 to 2023.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Article
70 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTimely influenza surveillance is important to monitor influenza epidemics.
objectives(i) To calculate the epidemic threshold for influenza-like illness (ILI) and acute respiratory infections (ARI) in 19 countries, as well as the thresholds for different levels of intensity. (ii) To evaluate the performance of these thresholds.
methodsThe moving epidemic method (MEM) has been developed to determine the baseline influenza activity and an epidemic threshold. False alerts, detection lags and timeliness of the detection of epidemics were calculated. The performance was evaluated using a cross-validation procedure.
resultsThe overall sensitivity of the MEM threshold was 71·8% and the specificity was 95·5%. The median of the timeliness was 1 week (range: 0-4·5).
conclusionsThe method produced a robust and specific signal to detect influenza epidemics. The good balance between the sensitivity and specificity of the epidemic threshold to detect seasonal epidemics and avoid false alerts has advantages for public health purposes. This method may serve as standard to define the start of the annual influenza epidemic in countries in Europe.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.