Preparation of Motion Pictures to Visualize the Geographical Propagation Pattern of Influenza Infection Using Pharmacy Big Data / 医薬品情報学

ABSTRACT

<b>Objective: </b>The aim of this study was to propose a method for preparing motion pictures to visualize the geometrical propagation of influenza infection.  The Greater Tokyo area (Kanto region) of Japan, which has a population of 43 million, was considered as a typical epidemic area for the 2012/2013 flu season.  Therefore, we collected data regarding the daily variations in the number of flu patients from 285 pharmacies located in the Kanto region during that time period.<br><b>Design and Methods: </b>To visualize the information mined from these big data, a motion picture consisting of 90 frames ranging from December 12, 2012 to March 21, 2013 was created.  Each frame depicted the daily image of infection as a circle centered at the pharmacy location on the background map, and its radius was proportioned to patient number.  The time variations of the flu patients at the pharmacies appeared to be noisy, which would cause the flickering on a display screen.  We adopted data smoothing and a model time series of the Gaussian distribution curve to circumvent the above problem.<br><b>Result: </b>The created motion picture indicated that the 2012/2013 flu season began near the central part of Toyo in December, 2012, spread towards the suburbs, and ended in March, 2013.<br><b>Conclusion: </b>The method proposed in this study can be considered an efficient and intuitive way to communicate essential epidemiological information.