The team of the Harker Influenza Project (HIP) is analyzing final data following two mote-wearing days, three surveys, and hours of research put into finding the causes of influenza transmission in schools such as ours.

Assisted by researchers from Penn State University, Dr. Marcel Salathé and Dr. Vicki Barclay, participating students were divided into four separate teams, each with a different purpose, some of which included data analysis, swab analysis, and creation of an iPhone app. All of these teams will share their research in the near future to provide a comprehensive overview of the results.

Large populations such as high schools are extremely representative of the way that influenza spreads, according to Salathé.

“The main goals were to study the interaction patterns relevant for influenza spread among people at a high school. Contact networks of people are like a road system on which viruses like influenza can travel,” said Salathé in an e-mail interview with the Winged Post. “At the same time, these contact networks are a bit more complicated than road systems.”

Students wore motes to track the spread of the flu. One group was tasked with developing an iPhone app to replace the motes.

“We’re making an iPhone app that would replace the motes. We’re almost done; all that needs to be done are a few UI changes,” Rishabh Jain (9) said.

However, the researchers did not get all of the data they wanted. Barclay, a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State University, notes their overdependence on the mote data.

“Our goal was to collect the mote data and compare it with the flu data; however, there was a very mild flu season that precluded our data analysis,” Barclay said in a phone interview with the Winged Post8.

Nevertheless, others were impressed with the project. Elizabeth Teng (10), was very interested to discover the results.

“I believe that this project was worth the effort because it’s their method of finding out how diseases spread. The best part? Being part of an effective project. I can’t wait to find out what they observed,”she said.

In addition, Salathé sees a great opportunity for future studies.

“There are also other settings (apart from a high school) that would be very interesting to look at,” he said. “This is really important research because we still understand so little about how these disease spread, and any information that will help us to reduce the spread, particularly in schools, will mean less illness and fewer complications from infections.”

The researchers hope that this data will help prevent the spread of influenza in the real world and can preclude epidemics such as the swine flu.