Yelp tips off New York food inspectors to uncaught violations

NEW YORK, May 22 (UPI) -- New York City health officials and Columbia University have teamed up with social restaurant review website Yelp to track down hundreds of previously unreported instances of foodborne illnesses.

Researchers mined data from 300,000 reviews of New York restaurants posted in the last nine months, targeting keywords such as "sick," "vomit," "diarrhea" or "food poisoning."

"[We thought], 'Wow if we could sort through all these Yelp posts, when we found groups of postings where groups of people got sick... it could help us identify an outbreak," Dr. Sharon Balter of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said.

After finding nearly 500 reviews that indicated customer illness, health officials determined only 3 percent of them had been reported. After interviewing 27 Yelp reviewers, officials found 16 credible cases of foodborne illness tracing back to three different restaurants.

"We didn't really know what we would find, but we were really excited that we found three outbreaks," Balter told ABC News.

Two of these restaurants had health violations including vermin presence, roaches and unsanitary work surfaces.