Flu results – Dr. Rob’s report

The question this project posed was:

Can school illness absence data could help us predict flu peaks earlier than other methods?

The answer: Maybe

The data you provided showed that school absences rose before other indicators of flu outbreaks, but the results aren’t entirely clear because:

  1. In the first year of the project. 2011/12national rates of flu were the lowest for 25 years.

  2. During the 2012/13 season the flu peak occurred over the Christmas Holidays and the gap in absence data means we can’t be sure the rise in school absence is a clear precursor

Such is science.

Dr Rob has written his academic paper on the project. You can read the pre-publication draft in full by clicking on the link: DMD manuscript 14 6 3 – Pre publication report for school comments or you can access to the different sections of the report and leave comments in each of them at:

Doctor Rob would like you to make comments before he submits it for publication to PLoS in July 2014. In particular some information on the potential for misclassifying absence reasons would be very useful.

What did we do?

Decipher my Data – Flu ran for two winters, 2011/12 & 2012/13. 27 schools submitted data, thank you. The data consisted of weekly school illness absence data from September through to April. Dr Rob analysed that data using univariable linear regression to triangulate against RCGP data on flu like illness and against microbiological surveillance data for flu, Rhinovirus, RSV and Norovirus.

How you helped

Taking part was the first thing. Without your data the project is nothing. You also created 50 Lablogs that gave Dr Rob local insights into the data that have fed into his report. One school also wrote and uploaded their report on their data. Thank you.

Results

Dr Rob has written his report on the project. This is the official academic paper that he will submit to PloS One and possibly other journals. Before he submits it he would like you, his collaborators on this project to review and comment on his paper to help him improve it. Please leave comments here asking your questions, giving suggestions on how it could be improved or where he may have made a mistake. We have until the end of June to help him. That is when it needs to be submitted and that is the end of our project.

Download Dr. Rob’s Flu report here: DMD manuscript 14 6 3 – Pre publication report for school comments.

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