Seasonal variations and public search interests in Toxoplasma: a 16-year retrospective analysis of big data on Google Trends

Abstract

Background This study aims to understand whether there is a seasonal change in the internet search interest for Toxoplasma by using the data derived from Google Trends (GT). Methods The present study searched for the relative search volume (RSV) for the search term ‘Toxoplasma’ in GT within six major English-speaking countries (Australia, New Zealand [Southern Hemisphere] and Canada, Ireland, the UK and the USA [Northern Hemisphere] from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2019, utilizing the category of ‘health’. Data regarding the RSV of Toxoplasma was obtained and further statistical analysis was performed in R software using the ‘season’ package. Results There were significantly seasonal patterns for the RSV of the search term ‘Toxoplasma’ in five countries (all p<0.05), except for the UK. A peak in December–March and a trough in July–September (Canada, Ireland, the UK and the USA) were observed, while a peak in June/August and a trough in December/February (Australia, New Zealand) were also found. Moreover, the presence of seasonal patterns regarding RSV for ‘Toxoplasma’ between the Southern and Northern Hemispheres was also found (both p<0.05), with a reversed meteorological month. Conclusions Overall, our study revealed the seasonal variation for Toxoplasma in using internet search data from GT, providing additional evidence on seasonal patterns in Toxoplasma.