Google trends identifying seasons of religious gathering: applied to investigate the correlation between crowding and flu outbreak |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Computer Information Systems, College of Computer Science and Information Technology, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia;2. King Fahd University Hospital, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia;3. Department of Computer Science, College of Computer Science and Information Technology, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia;1. Key Laboratory of Complex Systems Modeling and Simulation, School of Computer Science and Technology, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China;2. Department of Pain Medicine, the First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310018, China;3. Wuhan second ship design and research institute, Wuhan 430205, China;1. School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China;2. Informatics Institute, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;3. Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;1. Bitlis Eren University, Informatics Department, 13000 Bitlis, Turkey;2. İnönü University, Department of Computer Engineering, 44000 Malatya, Turkey;1. Digital Media Art Department, Shanghai Theatre Academy, China;2. College of Intelligence and Computing, Tianjin University, China;1. College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, No.38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, China;2. Hikvision, No.555 Qianmo Road, Binjiang District, Hangzhou 310051, China |
| |
| Abstract: | In medical research, mass gathering is considered as one of the intensifying factors for respiratory disease outbreaks. An annual crowding event happens during Muslims’ religious practices of Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Another smaller ritual happens all year round, known as Umrah. While Hajj season is recognized, Umrah seasonality is challenging to identify. This paper uses data from Google Trends to identify Umrah seasons for performers from the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia. It then investigates the correlation between mass gathering events as it affects the flu spread in the Eastern Province through the use of data. Patient data from a hospital was obtained to find flu seasonality and compared to crowding seasons. Google Trend data was confirmed by a limited dataset of official Umrah data and Flu data was confirmed by official FluNet data from neighboring country, Bahrain. An Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) approach has been followed to identify the seasonality. Cross-correlation analysis found a strong positive correlation between crowding seasons and flu outbreaks in the Eastern Province with a forward shift of flu data for three months. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录！ |
|
