Analyzing Citizens’ and Health Care Professionals’ Searches for Smell/Taste Disorders and Coronavirus in Finland During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Infodemiological Approach Using Database Logs

Mukka, Milla; Pesälä, Samuli; Hammer, C; Mustonen, Pekka; Jormanainen, Vesa; Pelttari, Hanna; Kaila, Minna; Helve, Otto

doi:10.2196/31961

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Citizens may have searched for post-vaccination symptoms, such as allergic reactions, in the HL database. This finding supports the previous results on citizens’ seeking behavior in the dedicated internet database [ 21 , 24 ]. Searches slightly increased during the shortages of EpiPen®, Jext®, and Emerade® in February 2018−December 2020, meaning that mass media may have provided health information on shortages resulting in citizens’ online information seeking in the HL database.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…The situations and solutions are usually unique. This current study brings novel knowledge into the field of medicine shortages, and the prior work [ 20 – 24 ] supports the findings that HCPs and citizens seek real-time information in the dedicated medical online databases. This information on searching auto-injectors on the internet can be used in detection of epinephrine shortages.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…The strength of this study was the representativeness of log data from PD and HL, as demonstrated in the previous studies of infectious diseases [ 20 – 24 ]. However, this study has several limitations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…In the third and fourth studies, HCPs’ searches for oseltamivir in the dedicated databases correlated with influenza diagnoses in adults (2019) [ 22 ] and children (2022) [ 23 ], indicating that the searches could be used as a supplementary source of information when detecting influenza epidemics. The fifth study mathematically analyzed and modeled the database logs used by HCPs and citizens, thus could be used as an additional source of information for surveilling COVID-19 (2021) [ 24 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Detecting epinephrine auto-injector shortages in Finland 2016–2022: Log-data analysis of online information seeking

Mukka,

Pesälä,

Mustonen

et al. 2024

PLoS ONE

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Introduction Medicine shortages prevail as a worldwide problem causing life-threatening situations for adults and children. Epinephrine auto-injectors are used for serious allergic reactions called anaphylaxis, and alternative auto-injectors are not always available in pharmacies. Healthcare professionals in Finland use the dedicated internet source, Physician’s Database (PD), when seeking medical information in practice, while Health Library (HL) provides health information for citizens (S1 Data). The objectives were to assess whether (1) professionals’ searches for epinephrine auto-injectors and (2) citizens’ anaphylaxis article openings relate to epinephrine shortages in Finland. Methods Monthly log data on epinephrine auto-injectors (EpiPen®, Jext®, Emerade®) from PD and on openings of anaphylaxis articles from HL were collected during 2016–2022. Professionals’ searches of seven auto-injectors and citizens’ openings of four anaphylaxis articles were compared to information on epinephrine shortages reported by Finnish Medicines Agency. Professionals’ auto-injector prescriptions provided by Social Insurance Institution were also assessed. Results Total searches in EpiPen® (N = 111,740), Jext® (N = 25,631), and Emerade® (N = 18,329) could be analyzed during 2016–2022. EpiPen® only could visually show seasonal patterns during summertime, peaking vigorously in the summer of 2018 when the major EpiPen® shortage appeared worldwide. Anaphylaxis articles equaled 2,030,855 openings altogether. Openings of one anaphylaxis article (“Bites and Stings”) peaked during summertime, while another article (“Anaphylactic Reaction”) peaked only once (three-fold increase) at the end of 2020 when COVID-19 vaccinations started, and auto-injector prescriptions were lowest. Fifty EpiPen®, one Jext®, and twelve Emerade® shortages were reported. Almost a two-fold increase in peaks of auto-injector prescriptions was found during summertime. Conclusion This study shows that (1) epinephrine shortages related to professionals’ searching for auto-injectors, and (2) citizens’ information seeking on anaphylaxis related to summertime and shortages with lesser prescriptions. Therefore, the dedicated internet databases aimed at professionals and citizens could be used as additional information sources to detect anaphylactic reactions and auto-injector shortages.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Detecting epinephrine auto-injector shortages in Finland 2016–2022: Log-data analysis of online information seeking

Mukka,

Pesälä,

Mustonen

et al. 2024

PLoS ONE

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Changes to Public Health Surveillance Methods Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review

Clark,

Neumann,

Hopkins

et al. 2024

JMIR Public Health Surveill

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Background Public health surveillance plays a vital role in informing public health decision-making. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 caused a widespread shift in public health priorities. Global efforts focused on COVID-19 monitoring and contact tracing. Existing public health programs were interrupted due to physical distancing measures and reallocation of resources. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic intersected with advancements in technologies that have the potential to support public health surveillance efforts. Objective This scoping review aims to explore emergent public health surveillance methods during the early COVID-19 pandemic to characterize the impact of the pandemic on surveillance methods. Methods A scoping search was conducted in multiple databases and by scanning key government and public health organization websites from March 2020 to January 2022. Published papers and gray literature that described the application of new or revised approaches to public health surveillance were included. Papers that discussed the implications of novel public health surveillance approaches from ethical, legal, security, and equity perspectives were also included. The surveillance subject, method, location, and setting were extracted from each paper to identify trends in surveillance practices. Two public health epidemiologists were invited to provide their perspectives as peer reviewers. Results Of the 14,238 unique papers, a total of 241 papers describing novel surveillance methods and changes to surveillance methods are included. Eighty papers were review papers and 161 were single studies. Overall, the literature heavily featured papers detailing surveillance of COVID-19 transmission (n=187). Surveillance of other infectious diseases was also described, including other pathogens (n=12). Other public health topics included vaccines (n=9), mental health (n=11), substance use (n=4), healthy nutrition (n=1), maternal and child health (n=3), antimicrobial resistance (n=2), and misinformation (n=6). The literature was dominated by applications of digital surveillance, for example, by using big data through mobility tracking and infodemiology (n=163). Wastewater surveillance was also heavily represented (n=48). Other papers described adaptations to programs or methods that existed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (n=9). The scoping search also found 109 papers that discuss the ethical, legal, security, and equity implications of emerging surveillance methods. The peer reviewer public health epidemiologists noted that additional changes likely exist, beyond what has been reported and available for evidence syntheses. Conclusions The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated advancements in surveillance and the adoption of new technologies, especially for digital and wastewater surveillance methods. Given the investments in these systems, further applications for public health surveillance are likely. The literature for surveillance methods was dominated by surveillance of infectious diseases, particularly COVID-19. A substantial amount of literature on the ethical, legal, security, and equity implications of these emerging surveillance methods also points to a need for cautious consideration of potential harm.

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Changes to Public Health Surveillance Methods Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review (Preprint)

Clark¹,

Neumann²,

Hopkins³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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UNSTRUCTURED Public health surveillance plays a vital role in informing public health decision making. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 caused a widespread shift in public health priorities. Global efforts focused on COVID-19 monitoring and contact tracing. Existing public health programs were interrupted due to physical distancing measures and re-allocation of resources. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic intersected with advancements in technologies that have the potential to support public health surveillance efforts. This scoping review explores emergent public health surveillance methods during the early COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 241 articles describing novel surveillance methods and changes to surveillance methods are included. This literature was dominated by applications of digital surveillance, for example by using Big Data through mobility tracking and infodemiology. Wastewater surveillance was also heavily represented. Other articles described adaptations to programs that existed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as remote screening via videoconferencing. The scoping search also found 109 articles that discuss the ethical, legal, security and equity implications of emerging surveillance methods. While the pandemic accelerated advancements in surveillance, there is a need for cautious consideration of potential harms in implementing these methods.

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Analyzing Citizens’ and Health Care Professionals’ Searches for Smell/Taste Disorders and Coronavirus in Finland During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Infodemiological Approach Using Database Logs

Cited by 3 publications

References 22 publications

Detecting epinephrine auto-injector shortages in Finland 2016–2022: Log-data analysis of online information seeking

Detecting epinephrine auto-injector shortages in Finland 2016–2022: Log-data analysis of online information seeking

Changes to Public Health Surveillance Methods Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review

Changes to Public Health Surveillance Methods Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review (Preprint)

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