Review on the climate factors-based flu epidemic prediction / 国际中医中药杂志

ABSTRACT

Epidemic influenza (flu) is a disease threatening the life of people for a long history.A precise forecast for the flu outbreak can warn and help health care providers to take measures to reduce the influences and harms in advance.At present,with the development of information technology,there have accumulated tremendous data of flu trends and climate information.With a history of 90 years researches about the forecast of flu trends,researchers have put forward different types of forecasting methods,and each of them has merits and demerits.Among these methods,those ones considering the key climate factors have higher precisions.Considering various methods at present,the prediction accuracy can be improved mainly from two aspects:on one hand,the forecast accuracy can be improved by effectively integrate the advantages of different models ; On the other hand,the prediction must take into account of the specific climate of an area,pathogens and the mode of transmission characteristics in order to determine the most relevant climate factors or other highly related factors with which to design a more reasonable and accurate prediction method.