Google Trends Data: A Potential New Tool for Monitoring the Opioid Crisis

Ghosh, Abhishek; Bisaga, Adam; Kaur, Simranjit; Mahintamani, Tathagata

doi:10.1159/000517302

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Also, anti-vaccine searches during the coronavirus pandemic have shown insights into health-seeking behavior despite the gravity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related mortality [ 7 ]. Furthermore, real-time Google Trends is an inexpensive way to monitor the opioid overdose epidemic if correlated with the official records [ 8 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cardiac Symptoms During the Russia-Ukraine War: A Google Trends Analysis

Dolkar¹,

Gowda²,

Chatterjee³

2023

Cureus

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BackgroundThe 2022 Ukraine-Russian War has led to significant anxiety, anguish, and trauma among the people in Ukraine. The objective of this study was to analyze the Google Trend results of common cardiac symptoms in Ukraine, Russia, and worldwide in 2022 and compare that to 2021 with the hypothesis that common cardiac symptoms in the war-affected regions would be higher compared to the rest of the world. We hypothesize that the search trends of cardiac symptoms would increase in Ukraine given the turmoil caused by the Russian invasion. MethodsWe queried Google Trends for common cardiac symptoms such as chest pain, dizziness, palpitations, syncope, etc. Google Trends provides results as relative search volume (RSV) displayed in a geographical format. The RSV ranges from 0 to 100, with 0 indicating that the search term is not popular, and 100 indicating the search term's popularity is at its peak. Google Trends of cardiac symptoms in Russia, Ukraine, and worldwide was taken two weeks before and after February 24, 2022, compared with the same period in 2021. To assess the difference in Google Trends between the study periods in 2022 and 2021, the paired ttest was used. ResultsOverall, Google Trends for cardiac symptoms was lower in Ukraine and Russia than worldwide, in both 2021 and 2022 during the study period. There was a significant reduction in search for chest pain (14 vs. 30.5; p<0.049), pedal edema (40.0 vs 66.6; p approaching 0), and syncope (37.8 vs. 58.4; p<0.002) in Ukraine during the study periods in 2022 compared to 2021. There was a decrease in the searches for dyspnea (44.6 vs. 55.4; p<0.029) in Russia and for dizziness (87.6 vs. 92.8; p<0.005) worldwide. There was an increase in the searches for edema (93.6 vs. 91; p <0.002) and for fatigue (88.6 vs 79.5; p approaching 0) worldwide in study periods in 2022 as compared to 2021. There was no other significant difference between cardiac symptom search trends during the periods evaluated in Ukraine, Russia, and worldwide. ConclusionThere appears to be a significant reduction in searching for a few cardiovascular symptoms, namely, chest pain, pedal edema, and syncope in Ukraine, which may be due to a focus on other immediate problems related to war and the availability of the Internet.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cardiac Symptoms During the Russia-Ukraine War: A Google Trends Analysis

Dolkar¹,

Gowda²,

Chatterjee³

2023

Cureus

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“…Studies have demonstrated public interest trends across seasonal, demographic, and geographic variations [ 4 ]. Monitoring GT data has also been used to supplement current data sources to track contemporary public health issues, as one study used GT data to monitor the opioid overdose epidemic [ 5 ]. Furthermore, current and future applications include the ability to predict patient decisions and trends, which can be utilized to make decisions that affect public health [ 6 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the Quality, Readability, and Activity of Online Information on Brain Arteriovenous Malformations

Mehra,

Brody,

Kollapaneni

et al. 2023

Cureus

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Introduction Brain arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are vascular deformities created by improper connections between arteries and veins, most commonly in the brain and spinal cord. The management is complex and patient-dependent; further understanding of patient education activities is imperative. Internet access has become more ubiquitous, allowing patients to utilize a large database of medical information online. Using Google Trends (GT) (Google LLC, Mountain View, CA, USA), one can see the public interest in a particular topic over time. Further, when presented with numerous search results, patients may not be able to identify the highest-yielding resources, making objective measures of information quality and readability imperative. Methods A GT analysis was conducted for “hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia,” “cerebral aneurysm,” and “arteriovenous malformation”. These relative search volumes (RSV) were compared with the 2017 to 2019 annual USA AVM diagnosis quantity for correlation. These RSVs were also compared with the 2017 to 2019 annual USA deaths due to cerebral hemorrhagic conditions. One search was conducted for “brain arteriovenous malformation”. Since most users looking for health information online use only the first page of sources, the quality and readability analyses were limited to the first page of results on Google search. Five quality tools and six readability formulas were used. Results Pearson’s correlation coefficients showed positive correlations between USA AVM RSVs and annual AVM deaths per capita from 2017 to 2019 (R 2 =0.932). The AVM annual diagnosis quantity and AVM RSVs showed a strong positive correlation as well (R 2 =0.998). Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and cerebral aneurysms had strong positive correlations between their RSVs and their corresponding annual diagnoses in the 2017 to 2019 time period (R 2 =0.982, R 2 =0.709). One-way ANOVA, for USA’s 2004 to 2021 AVM RSVs and 2004 to 2019 deaths per capita, displayed no month-specific statistically significant repeating pattern (all p>0.483). The DISCERN tool had four websites that qualified as “poor” and five as “good.” The average score for the tool was “good.” The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark scores were very low on average, as four websites achieved zero points. There was a wide variance in the currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose (CRAAP) scores, indicating an inconsistent level of webpage reliability across results. The patient education materials assessment tool (PEMAT) understandability (86.6%) showed much higher scores than the PEMAT actionability (54.6%). No readability score averaged at or below the American Medical Association (AMA)-recommended sixth-grade reading level. Conclusion These GT correlations may be due to patients and families with new diagnoses researching those same cond...

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“…Moreover, this also eliminates repeated searches by the same person over a short period of time, and it shows only data for popular terms. These prevent spurious inflation of search volume by a single user and ensure the user-specified search terms are searched enough to generate a timeseries trend (Ghosh et al 2021a). Besides, GT gives a list of related topics and queries.…”

Section: Introduction To Various Google Toolsmentioning

confidence: 99%