Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi!

I have completely changed my science fair project idea, and I am now going in the direction of studying ways to effectively controll an outbreak of the Swine Flu, for future reference.

By using a closed population, I can model the evolution of an outbreak, then determine ways to best use the supplies available help the population. I am also going to study the evolution in the # of days and possibly attempt to predict future outbreaks of H1N1.

My question is:

Where can I find specific data for a certain city pertaining to the # of people affected, and of what age they are so that I can study the evolution, in different classifications according to age? - I would specifically like to find a city or county in Texas that has the statistics available for me to use, and as of right now I am not having much luck finding one.

Thanks
A

luv2swim222,

If you are interested in data specific to counties within a state, I would recommend visiting the website for the Department of Health for that state.

For example, you can find data about the number of cases of H1N1 in California here:

http://www.cdph.ca.gov/data/statistics/ ... 1Data.aspx

This website contains graphs, charts, and more data about the number of confirmed cases, severe cases, and fatalities by county.

I also found data for the state of Texas, as I know you are interested in a particular county in Texas. I searched and found this website:

http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/txflu/TX-surveillance.shtm

This information is provided by the state's health department as well. You might be able to information from many states in one place, however it may not be as specific.

If you need any data for a particular state, just search for the state's health department e.g. "Georgia department of health". The first link is usually the correct one, but a way to check is to see if it ends in ".gov" or ".us".

Hope this helps!

-Chris

I fixed the first link so it should work now.

Thanks

I am gonna check it out right now! I know the other day I sent email's to Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio with requests for specific data. Because I can't do more than one "trial", I am doing multiple cities to see if the results come out the same, or similar.

Thanks for the help I'm gonna go see what I can find

A

Thanks so much! That data helped me out so much.

Now I'm trying to understand this whole differential equation/logistical equation concept. Any pointers or websites that would help me solve the equations to model the spread of the virus, would be a great help

Thanks again

A

Hi!
This might be a website of interest to you, it explains a little bit about the math behind disease modeling:

http://plus.maths.org/issue14/features/diseases/

Hope this helps!