A Google Trends analysis revealed global public interest and awareness of nasal polyps

Abstract

Introduction Nasal polyps (NPs) is a common upper airway inflammatory disorder with a huge negative burden on both the quality of life and costs to patients. However, NPs patients remain undiagnosed and untreated in a timely, which may be due to a lack of disease-related awareness. Google Trends (GT) is an online and open tool, which can provide real-world data on health informatics worldwide. Objectives This study aimed to explore global public interest and awareness in nasal polyps (NPs) by performing a GT analysis. Methods Data on relative search volume (RSV) for NPs globally were collected by the public website Google Trends from January 2007 to December 2021. Top-related topics, rising-related topics, and regions were extracted for further analysis. Seasonal variation analysis, the latitude difference analysis, and the rising-related topics between the developed countries and the developing countries were analyzed. A P value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results The average searching strength showed an overall increasing trend, although with slight fluctuation. The public interest of NPs focuses on the symptoms and treatment for NPs and changes with time. For seasonal variation countries, the peak for the RSV occurred in winter and the bottom in summer. A region in higher latitudes may yield more RSV than that in lower latitudes. The rising-related topics in the recent 5 years reflected the significant differences in treatment and public interest of NPs between the developed and developing countries. Conclusions Google Trends analysis revealed global public interest and awareness of the evolution of trends and related topics in nasal polyps over time. Geographic distribution and seasonal variation may be potential trigger factors for NPs, and the public's interest in treatment especially biologics is rising.

Food allergy: What are people looking for? An infodemiology study

“…In the medical field, some examples are forecasting epidemiological traits of allergic rhinitis, establishing correlation between asthma hospitalizations and common cold, revealing spikes of interest in nasal polyps, among many others. 5 , 6 , 7 The spike of interest in milk allergy in 2021 for 6 out of the 10 selected countries might be related to the findings of a study in the UK 8 which showed that cow's milk allergy may be the root of three‐quarters of newborns' two or more allergic symptoms at some point in the first year of life. Another possible reason for the trending phenomenon may be the hospitalizations and deaths of infants in the USA because of contaminated Abott baby formula products in May of 2022.…”