title: Fine-grained dengue forecasting using telephone triage services.
abstract: Thousands of lives are lost every year in developing countries for failing to detect epidemics early because of the lack of real-time disease surveillance data. We present results from a large-scale deployment of a telephone triage service as a basis for dengue forecasting in Pakistan. Our system uses statistical analysis of dengue-related phone calls to accurately forecast suspected dengue cases 2 to 3 weeks ahead of time at a subcity level (correlation of up to 0.93). Our system has been operational at scale in Pakistan for the past 3 years and has received more than 300,000 phone calls. The predictions from our system are widely disseminated to public health officials and form a critical part of active government strategies for dengue containment. Our work is the first to demonstrate, with significant empirical evidence, that an accurate, location-specific disease forecasting system can be built using analysis of call volume data from a public health hotline.
authors.affiliation: Information Technology University, Lahore 54000, Pakistan.; Computer Science and Engineering, New York University, New York, NY 11201, USA.
authors.forename: Nabeel
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-7974-1108
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Abdur Rehman
authors.affiliation: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York, NY 10012, USA.; Center for Technology and Economic Development, NYU Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi PO Box 129188, United Arab Emirates.
authors.forename: Shankar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kalyanaraman
authors.affiliation: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York, NY 10012, USA.; Center for Technology and Economic Development, NYU Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi PO Box 129188, United Arab Emirates.
authors.forename: Talal
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ahmad
authors.affiliation: Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Fahad
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Pervaiz
authors.affiliation: Information Technology University, Lahore 54000, Pakistan.; Punjab Information Technology Board, Lahore 54000, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Umar
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-6785-8058
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Saif
authors.affiliation: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, New York, NY 10012, USA.; Center for Technology and Economic Development, NYU Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi PO Box 129188, United Arab Emirates.
authors.forename: Lakshminarayanan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Subramanian
mesh_terms: D001364:Awareness; D003153:Community Health Services; D003715:Dengue / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005544:Forecasting; D006761:Hospitals; D015277:Hotlines; D006801:Humans; D013689:Telephone; D014218:Triage
keywords: Public health; dengue; disease forecasting; disease surveillance