Real-time surveillance would alert public health care practitioners in the early phases of an outbreak, enabling them to promptly institute control measures and case finding and to ensure adequate access to treatment, thereby reducing morbidity and mortality [6, 7]. With international concerns about emerging infectious diseases, bioterrorism, and pandemics, the need for a real-time surveillance system is at an all-time high [8–10]. The data generated would also be useful for public health care practice, clinical decision making, and research [11].
The main aim of this article is to introduce the more generic Google Trends (GT) tool to health professionals, to show how they can track disease activity of interest to them. We describe GT, how the data are processed, potential uses, and the tool's strengths and limitations.