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. 2018 Jun;23(25):1700337.
doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2018.23.25.1700337.

The potential value of crowdsourced surveillance systems in supplementing sentinel influenza networks: the case of France

Caroline Guerrisi  1 , Clément Turbelin  1 , Cécile Souty  1 , Chiara Poletto  1 , Thierry Blanchon  1 , Thomas Hanslik  1   2   3 , Isabelle Bonmarin  4 , Daniel Levy-Bruhl  4 , Vittoria Colizza  1
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The potential value of crowdsourced surveillance systems in supplementing sentinel influenza networks: the case of France

Caroline Guerrisi et al. Euro Surveill. 2018 Jun.

Abstract

IntroductionParticipatory surveillance systems provide rich crowdsourced data, profiling individuals and their health status at a given time. We explored the usefulness of data from GrippeNet.fr, a participatory surveillance system, to estimate influenza-related illness incidence in France. Methods: GrippeNet.fr is an online cohort since 2012 averaging ca. 5,000 weekly participants reporting signs/symptoms suggestive of influenza. GrippeNet.fr has flexible criteria to define influenza-related illness. Different case definitions based on reported signs/symptoms and inclusions of criteria accounting for individuals' reporting and participation were used to produce influenza-related illness incidence estimates, which were compared to those from sentinel networks. We focused on the 2012/13 and 2013/14 seasons when two sentinel networks, monitoring influenza-like-illness (ILI) and acute respiratory infections (ARI) existed in France. Results: GrippeNet.fr incidence estimates agreed well with official temporal trends, with a higher accuracy for ARI than ILI. The influenza epidemic peak was often anticipated by one week, despite irregular participation of individuals. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control ILI definition, commonly used by participatory surveillance in Europe, performed better in tracking ARI than ILI when applied to GrippeNet.fr data. Conclusion: Evaluation of the epidemic intensity from crowdsourced data requires epidemic and intensity threshold estimations from several consecutive seasons. The study provides a standardised analytical framework for crowdsourced surveillance showing high sensitivity in detecting influenza-related changes in the population. It contributes to improve the comparability of epidemics across seasons and with sentinel systems. In France, GrippeNet.fr may supplement the ILI sentinel network after ARI surveillance discontinuation in 2014.

Keywords: Internet; cohort; crowdsourced data; incidence; influenza; surveillance.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Comparison between official time series and GrippeNet.fr incidence curves using different computation methods, France 2012/13 and 2013/14
Figure 2
Figure 2
Comparison between official time series and GrippeNet.fr incidence curves using different case definitions within GrippeNet.fr, France 2012/13 and 2013/14
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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