Researchers tracking social media and Web searches have, according to USA Today, detected outbreaks of the flu and rare diseases in Latin America by up to two weeks before they were reported by local news media or government health agencies.

Working at a series of universities and companies around the country, the researchers are part of a program led by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA) that is aimed at anticipating critical societal events, such as disease outbreaks, violent uprisings or economic crises before they appear in the news.

“The goal is to use publicly available information to predict events, such as political violence, disease outbreaks and economic crises,” said Jason Matheny, program manager of IARPA’s Open Source Indicators program. “We’re using leading indicators like social media, Web search trends, Wikipedia in order to identify the events. We’re looking at flu outbreaks or other signs of unrest in a population.”

IARPA’s goal, Matheny said, is to inform U.S. policymakers about major events early enough to make more of a difference. Too often, he said, public announcements of disease outbreaks come too late. Intelligence analysts with access to a system able to eliminate the clutter that’s common in open source data may be able to get a jump on disease outbreaks or other problems.

IARPA is the intelligence community’s version of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which performs much of the military’s research into technology to make better weapons or improve medical treatments.