WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., May 13 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say monitoring human behavior such as people buying flu-related medications or Google searches may be a way to warn of pandemic.
Barrett Caldwell, a Purdue University associate professor of industrial engineering, said the conventional monitoring approach requires public health officials to know when certain events leading to pandemic begin.
"The problem with this requirement is that by the time you know an event has happened, it's often too late to do much about it," Caldwell said in a statement.
Caldwell and former Purdue industrial engineering doctoral student Sandra K. Garrett have proposed a new approach to warn the public of an impending pandemic.
"If you can recognize the triggers, the signals suggesting an event is likely to occur, you can start responding to it, gathering resources, preparing and mobilizing people," said Garrett, an assistant professor of industrial engineering at Clemson University.
Garrett and Caldwell are scheduled to present a paper June 2 at the Industrial Engineering Research Conference in Miami.
