Google launched a new public health initiative on Tuesday that can be used to determine where U.S. flu outbreaks may occur.

'Google Flu Trends' projects the locations of outbreaks based on states where flu-related terms are being searched.

"What's exciting about Flu Trends is that it lets anybody -- epidemiologists, health officials, moms with sick children -- learn about the current flu activity level in their own state based on data that's coming in this week," said Jeremy Ginsberg, the site's lead engineer.

Google collaborated with The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to refine the system and has provided flu tracking data over a period of five years.

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