The design and evaluation of a Bayesian system for detecting and characterizing outbreaks of influenza

The prediction and characterization of outbreaks of infectious diseases such as influenza remains an open and important problem.  This paper describes a framework for detecting and characterizing outbreaks of influenza and the results of testing it on data from ten outbreaks collected from two locations over five years.  We model outbreaks with compartment models and expliccitly model non-influenza influenza-like illnesses.