Case Study: Food Standards Agency predicts norovirus outbreaks with Pulsar Platform

Four Ways to Use Insights for Policy and Communications Advanced Audience Intelligence for Government

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) worked with Pulsar Platform, using Pulsar’s G-cloud certified social data research and audience intelligence platform to explore how social data could help them move beyond simply reporting on disease outbreaks and start predicting them. Their challenge was to identify useful data streams and audience signals that could improve public health insight, particularly around norovirus.

Pulsar Platform analyzed Twitter conversations about illness and norovirus, identifying related terms and symptoms such as “puke,” “vomit,” “chunder,” “vomcano,” and “diarrhoea” to detect early warning signals. As a result, the FSA can now use social media data to help predict norovirus outbreaks and communicate early warnings to the public with 70% accuracy, giving Pulsar Platform a measurable impact on outbreak forecasting.

Food Standards Agency