Application of the Internet Platform in Monitoring Chinese Public Attention to the Outbreak of COVID-19

Abstract

ObjectivesThe internet data is an essential tool for reflecting public attention to hot issues. This study aimed to use the Baidu Index (BDI) and Sina Micro Index (SMI) to confirm correlation between COVID-19 case data and Chinese online data (public attention). This could verify the effect of online data on early warning of public health events, which will enable us to respond in a more timely and effective manner.MethodsSpearman correlation was used to check the consistency of BDI and SMI. Time lag cross-correlation analysis of BDI, SMI and six case-related indicators and multiple linear regression prediction were performed to explore the correlation between public concern and the actual epidemic.ResultsThe public's usage trend of the Baidu search engine and Sina Weibo was consistent during the COVID-19 outbreak. BDI, SMI and COVID-19 indicators had significant advance or lag effects, among which SMI and six indicators all had advance effects while BDI only had advance effects with new confirmed cases and new death cases. But compared with the SMI, the BDI was more closely related to the epidemic severity. Notably, the prediction model constructed by BDI and SMI can well fit new confirmed cases and new death cases.ConclusionsThe confirmed associations between the public's attention to the outbreak of COVID and the trend of epidemic outbreaks implied valuable insights into effective mechanisms of crisis response. In response to public health emergencies, people can through the information recommendation functions of social media and search engines (such as Weibo hot search and Baidu homepage recommendation) to raise awareness of available disease prevention and treatment, health services, and policy change.

Early Warning and Monitoring of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Using Baidu Search Index and Baidu Information Index in Guangxi, China

“…The volume of the Baidu Information Index of each keyword was much higher than that of the Baidu Search Index and had 0 to 14 days' lag time to the number of new reported cases. This finding was inconsistent with another study that showed Sina Micro Index had advance effects on the COVID-19 outbreak 16 . This could be explained as Baidu Information Index weighted sum of and indexed the netizen's reading, comments, forwarding, likes, dislikes, and other behaviors.…”

“…This finding was inconsistent with another study that showed Sina Micro Index had advance effects on the COVID-19 outbreak. 16 This could be explained as Baidu Information Index weighted sum of and indexed the netizen's reading, comments, forwarding, likes, dislikes, and other behaviors. As supply-based data, it is easily driven by hot events, which can arouse public attention and stimulate public search behavior to a certain topic.…”

“…The supply-based data were also important for monitoring people's status updates on blogs and microblogs for outbreak detection. 15 , 16 But studies focusing on both demand- and supply-based data are limited. We investigated the predictive utility of Baidu Search Index and Baidu Information Index for early warning of the COVID-19 outbreak and for further monitoring of the epidemic trends in Guangxi and identification of the related keywords.…”

Characteristics of Collective Resilience and Its Influencing Factors from the Perspective of Psychological Emotion: A Case Study of COVID-19 in China

“…On this basis, it is feasible to categorize the stages of change in public attention by keeping track of variations in the numbers of hot searches relating to the pandemic during the study period. Given the limitations of single-source hot search samples, this paper also used another common index of the public attention to certain events, the Baidu index [ 51 , 52 , 53 ], to corroborate the classification results. Jieba word classification database tools were used to process the content of the hot search entries, with “novel coronavirus”, “pandemic”, “case”, “pneumonia”, and “new pneumonia” being identified as the top five keywords.…”

Spatiotemporal evolution of online attention to vaccines since 2011: An empirical study in China

“…Therefore, Baidu Index is reliable. Infodemiology studies based on the Baidu Index platform mainly involve the application in COVID-19 prediction and monitoring ( 60 , 61 ) but have not investigated OAV. In terms of research content, few studies have analyzed the spatial characteristics of OAV and their causes.…”