A unique and novel study has linked how well-known and socially active a person is to how likely they are to catch the flu before their friends; more popular people are more likely to catch the flu first.
Nicholas Christakis, a Harvard University professor of medicine, medical sociology and sociology and James Fowler, a University of California, San Diego, professor of medical genetics and political science, used what is known as the “friendship paradox” to predict and track the spread of the flu in 2009.
“If you want a crystal ball for finding out which parts of the country are going to get the flu first, then this may be the most effective method we have now,” Fowler said.
The “friendship paradox,” introduced in 1991, states essentially that if any given person were asked to name one friend, the friend they name would rank higher in the social web than they. In other words, those who are well connected would be more likely to be named.
Christakis and Fowler put this paradox into motion by conducting research that involved 319 Harvard undergraduates who were asked to name their friends. Christakis and Fowler carefully monitored the two groups – both the “namers” and the “named,” throughout the flu season.
They found that, on average, the “named” group caught the flu about two weeks before the “namers” did. They also found that, overall, the “named” group caught the flu 46 days before the epidemic’s peak.
“We show a way you can get ahead of an epidemic of flu, or potentially anything else that spreads in networks,” Fowler said.
