ArticlePloS one2021
A general method for estimating the prevalence of influenza-like-symptoms with Wikipedia data.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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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
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Learning from pandemics: Feature selection and clustering for robust digital disease nowcasting.PloS one · 2026Article
- Correction: A general method for estimating the prevalence of influenza-like-symptoms with Wikipedia data.PloS one · 2024Article
- Wikipedia page views for health research: a review.Frontiers in big data · 2023Review
- Influenza surveillance systems using traditional and alternative sources of data: A scoping review.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Influenza is an acute respiratory seasonal disease that affects millions of people worldwide and causes thousands of deaths in Europe alone. Estimating in a fast and reliable way the impact of an illness on a given country is essential to plan and organize effective countermeasures, which is now possible by leveraging unconventional data sources like web searches and visits. In this study, we show the feasibility of exploiting machine learning models and information about Wikipedia's page views of a selected group of articles to obtain accurate estimates of influenza-like illnesses incidence in four European countries: Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. We propose a novel language-agnostic method, based on two algorithms, Personalized PageRank and CycleRank, to automatically select the most relevant Wikipedia pages to be monitored without the need for expert supervision. We then show how our model can reach state-of-the-art results by comparing it with previous solutions.
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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.