Lymelight: forecasting Lyme disease risk using web search data

Sadilek, Adam; Hswen, Yulin; Bavadekar, Shailesh; Shekel, Tomer; Brownstein, John S.; Gabrilovich, Evgeniy

doi:10.1038/s41746-020-0222-x

Cited by 19 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…Among the most common tools for infoveillance is Google Trends (GT), a feature provided by Google that allows for quantification of Google searches for specific terms or broader topic areas [ 17 ]. For example, GT has been used to monitor outbreaks of infectious diseases [ 14 , 15 , 18 - 20 ], infer cancer incidences in specific geographic locations [ 3 , 21 ], and understand trends in health behaviors such as smoking cessation [ 22 , 23 ], suicide rates [ 24 ], uptake of cannabis products [ 25 ], and cancer screening [ 26 , 27 ]. It has also proven to be a valuable tool for tracking the impact of public health campaigns [ 22 , 28 ] and celebrity-related news [ 23 , 29 , 30 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Internet Interest in Colon Cancer Following the Death of Chadwick Boseman: Infoveillance Study

Naik¹,

Johnson²,

Johnson³

2021

J Med Internet Res

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Background Compared with White Americans, Black Americans have higher colon cancer mortality rates but lower up-to-date screening rates. Chadwick Boseman was a prominent Black American actor who died of colon cancer on August 28, 2020. As announcements of celebrity diagnoses often result in increased awareness, Boseman’s death may have resulted in greater interest in colon cancer on the internet, particularly among Black Americans. Objective This study aims to quantify the impact of Chadwick Boseman’s death on web-based search interest in colon cancer and determine whether there was an increase in interest in regions of the United States with a greater proportion of Black Americans. Methods We conducted an infoveillance study using Google Trends (GT) and Wikipedia pageview analysis. Using an autoregressive integrated moving average algorithm, we forecasted the weekly relative search volume (RSV) for GT search topics and terms related to colon cancer that would have been expected had his death not occurred and compared it with observed RSV data. This analysis was also conducted for the number of page views on the Wikipedia page for colorectal cancer. We then delineated GT RSV data for the term colon cancer for states and metropolitan areas in the United States and determined how the RSV values for these regions correlated with the percentage of Black Americans in that region. Differences in these correlations before and after Boseman’s death were compared to determine whether there was a shift in the racial demographics of the individuals conducting the searches. Results The observed RSVs for the topics colorectal cancer and colon cancer screening increased by 598% and 707%, respectively, and were on average 121% (95% CI 72%-193%) and 256% (95% CI 35%-814%) greater than expected during the first 3 months following Boseman’s death. Daily Wikipedia page view volume during the 2 months following Boseman’s death was on average 1979% (95% CI 1375%-2894%) greater than expected, and it was estimated that this represented 547,354 (95% CI 497,708-585,167) excess Wikipedia page views. Before Boseman’s death, there were negative correlations between the percentage of Black Americans living in a state or metropolitan area and the RSV for colon cancer in that area (r=−0.18 and r=−0.05, respectively). However, in the 2 weeks following his death, there were positive correlations between the RSV for colon cancer and the percentage of Black Americans per state and per metropolitan area (r=0.73 and r=0.33, respectively). These changes persisted for 4 months and were all statistically significant (P<.001). Conclusions There was a significant increase in web-based activity related to colon cancer following Chadwick Boseman’s death, particularly in areas with a higher proportion of Black Americans. This reflects a heightened public awareness that can be leveraged to further educate the public.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Internet Interest in Colon Cancer Following the Death of Chadwick Boseman: Infoveillance Study

Naik¹,

Johnson²,

Johnson³

2021

J Med Internet Res

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“…The pentacyclic oxindole alkaloids present in U. tomentosa are shown in Figure 3 (21)(22). These compounds possess the identical oxindole group linked to an indolizidine with an additional di-hydropyran structure fused to the six-member ring of the indolizidine structure.…”

Section: Pentacyclic Oxindole Alkaloidsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lyme disease is a tick-borne ailment brought on by the introduction of Borrelia burgdorferi to a host through a tick bite. Recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) investigations have indicated that as many as 300,000 Americans are affected by Lyme disease every year [22,23]. Improved antibiotic therapies capable of not only treating the initial symptoms of B. burgdorferi infections, but also preventing and treating persistent infections are needed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comprehensive Review of the Components in Cat’s Claw (Uncaria tomentosa) and Their Antibacterial Activity

Blanck¹,

Huebner²,

Rolls³

et al. 2022

AppliedChem

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Cat’s claw (Uncaria tomentosa (Willd. ex Schults) DC.), a plant that is exceptionally rich in phytochemicals, has been used for centuries by the indigenous people of South and Central America as a therapeutic and is currently widely exported for medicinal purposes. Extracts and individual components have shown considerable potential as antibacterials in the literature. The purpose of this review is twofold: first, to provide a substantiated, comprehensive collection of the known chemical constituents of U. tomentosa, including their detailed structures; second, to identify those components that offer some promise as antibacterials based on the research to date. Bacterial resistance to currently available antibiotics continues to increase and is widely recognized as an impending, potentially catastrophic, problem. There is research to suggest that U. tomentosa components may have antibacterial potential individually or synergistically with established antibiotics against microbes, including Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease. It is our intention that this review will provide a valuable resource to investigators in search of new antimicrobials to meet the daunting challenge of antibiotic resistance.

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“…Summary statistics of relevant demographic factors were compiled from the United States Census [35]. Proxies for the level of experience with Lyme disease include local Lyme disease incidence and Google search trends [36][37][38]. Lyme disease incidence data are summarized as the number of cases per 100 000 people in each county [39].…”

Section: Collector-associated Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating disease vector population size from citizen science data

Tran

Porter

Salkeld

et al. 2021

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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Citizen science projects have the potential to address hypotheses requiring extremely large datasets that cannot be collected with the financial and labour constraints of most scientific projects. Data collection by the general public could expand the scope of scientific enquiry if these data accurately capture the system under study. However, data collection inconsistencies by the untrained public may result in biased datasets that do not accurately represent the natural world. In this paper, we harness the availability of scientific and public datasets of the Lyme disease tick vector to identify and account for biases in citizen science tick collections. Estimates of tick abundance from the citizen science dataset correspond moderately with estimates from direct surveillance but exhibit consistent biases. These biases can be mitigated by including factors that may impact collector participation or effort in statistical models, which, in turn, result in more accurate estimates of tick population sizes. Accounting for collection biases within large-scale, public participation datasets could update species abundance maps and facilitate using the wealth of citizen science data to answer scientific questions at scales that are not feasible with traditional datasets.

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Lymelight: forecasting Lyme disease risk using web search data

Cited by 19 publications

References 82 publications

Internet Interest in Colon Cancer Following the Death of Chadwick Boseman: Infoveillance Study

Internet Interest in Colon Cancer Following the Death of Chadwick Boseman: Infoveillance Study

Comprehensive Review of the Components in Cat’s Claw (Uncaria tomentosa) and Their Antibacterial Activity

Estimating disease vector population size from citizen science data

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