More Diseases Tracked by Using Google Trends

Pelat, Camille; Turbelin, Clément; Bar-Hen, Avner; Flahault, Antoine; Valleron, A.J.

doi:10.3201/eid1508.090299

Cited by 225 publications

(179 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The recently developed the Google Insights for Search Application has been effectively applied to analyze large numbers of Google search queries aiming to track infl uenza-like illness in different populations [ 8 ] . The application has also been applied in the assessment of outbreaks of salmonella and gastroenteritis and for predicting the annual incidence of Dengue fever [ 13,14 ] . More recently, the application has been effectively utilized to record increases in Internet search activity for the term ' breast cancer ' every October in concordance with breast cancer awareness campaigns that occur during this month annually [ 9 ] .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting internet activity for erectile dysfunction using search engine query data in the Republic of Ireland

2012

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What's known on the subject? and What does the study add?Despite the increasing prevalence of erectile dysfunction (ED), there is reluctance among symptomatic patients to present to healthcare providers for appropriate advice and treatment.A number of Internet campaigns have been launched by the Irish healthcare media since 2007 aiming to provide easily accessible advice on ED. Novel online technologies appear to provide a useful tool for educating the general public on the symptoms of ED because there has been a significant increase in overall Internet search activity for this term since 2007.OBJECTIVES To assess Internet search trends for erectile dysfunction (ED) subsequent to public awareness campaigns being launched within the Republic of Ireland To assess whether the advent of such campaigns correlates with increased Internet search activity for ED. MATERIALS AND METHODS Google insights for search was utilized to examine Internet search trends for the term ‘erectile dysfunction’ across all categories between January 2005 and December 2011. Search activity was limited to users from the Republic of Ireland within this timeframe. Additionally, the number of Irish Internet media campaigns and Irish web pages providing information on ED was assessed between January 2005 and December 2011. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using analysis of variance and Student's t‐tests for pairwise comparisons. RESULTS There has been a significant increase in mean search activity for ED on an annual basis since 2007 (P < 0.001). The number of Irish web pages associated with information on ED has also increased significantly on an annual basis since 2007 (P < 0.001). There have been seven different Irish Internet media campaigns on ED since 2007 compared to two from 2005 to 2007 (P < 0.001). There was no significant change in mean search activity for ED from 2005 to 2007 CONCLUSIONS The advent of recent Internet media campaigns and increasing number of Irish web pages is associated with a significant increase in online activity for ED in the Republic of Ireland. Novel online technologies appear to provide a useful tool for educating the general public on the symptoms and treatment options available for ED.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting internet activity for erectile dysfunction using search engine query data in the Republic of Ireland

2012

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“…Johnson et al [93], Pelat et al [67], and Jia-xing et al [64] identified no reliable leading signals. On the other hand, Polgreen et al [68] used lag analysis with a shift granularity of one week to forecast positive influenza cultures as well as influenza and pneumonia mortality with a horizon of 5 weeks or more (though these indicators may trail the onset of symptoms significantly).…”

Section: Author Summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When appropriately trained, these methods can be quite accurate; for example, many of the cited models can produce near real-time estimates of case counts with correlations upwards of r = 0.95. The collection of disease surveillance work cited above has estimated incidence for a wide variety of infectious and noninfectious conditions: avian influenza [52], cancer [55], chicken pox [67], cholera [81], dengue [50,53,84], dysentery [76], gastroenteritis [56,61,67], gonorrhea [64], hand foot and mouth disease (HFMD) [72], HIV/AIDS [75,76], influenza [34,36,54,57,59,62,63,65,67,68,71,74,[77][78][79][80]82,83,[85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93], kidney stones [51], listeriosis [70], malaria [66], methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) [58]<...>…”

Section: Author Summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Openness. Deep access to search queries from Baidu, a Chinese-language search engine serving mostly the Chinese market (http://www.baidu.com) [64,74,76]; Google [36,[50][51][52][53][54][56][57][58][59][60][65][66][67][69][70][71][72][73]75]; Yahoo [55,68]; and Yandex, a search engine serving mostly Russia and Slavic countries in Russian (http://www.yandex.ru), English (http://www. yandex.com), and Turkish (http://www.yandex.com.tr) [75], as well as purpose-built health website search queries [61][62][63] and access logs [72,93] are available only to those within the organizations, upon payment of an often-substantial fee, or by some other special arrangement.…”

Section: Author Summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Global Disease Monitoring and Forecasting with Wikipedia

Generous

Fairchild²,

Deshpande³

et al. 2016

OJPHI

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Infectious disease is a leading threat to public health, economic stability, and other key social structures. Efforts to mitigate these impacts depend on accurate and timely monitoring to measure the risk and progress of disease. Traditional, biologically-focused monitoring techniques are accurate but costly and slow; in response, new techniques based on social internet data, such as social media and search queries, are emerging. These efforts are promising, but important challenges in the areas of scientific peer review, breadth of diseases and countries, and forecasting hamper their operational usefulness. We examine a freely available, open data source for this use: access logs from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Using linear models, language as a proxy for location, and a systematic yet simple article selection procedure, we tested 14 location-disease combinations and demonstrate that these data feasibly support an approach that overcomes these challenges. Specifically, our proof-of-concept yields models with r 2 up to 0.92, forecasting value up to the 28 days tested, and several pairs of models similar enough to suggest that transferring models from one location to another without retraining is feasible. Based on these preliminary results, we close with a research agenda designed to overcome these challenges and produce a disease monitoring and forecasting system that is significantly more effective, robust, and globally comprehensive than the current state of the art.

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“…Google trends analyses can be either retrospective or cross-sectional; these are highly accurate, as they are based on extrapolation of data from millions of users of the web (surface web). Furthermore, extrapolations can be geographically mapped (geo-mapped) for a particular region of the world (Carneiro et al, 2009;Pelat et al, 2009;Seifter et al, 2010). For instance, geo-mapping of surface web users' interest in relation to amphetamines and ATS; the attentiveness of surface web users can be analysed, using Google Trends, in connection with phenethylamine, amphetamine, and ATS, and in retrospect to provide an accurate inference on the electronic epidemiology (e-epidemiology) on the Internet (Carneiro et al, 2009;Seifter et al, 2010).…”

Section: Google Trends Analyses: Amphetamine and Amphetamine-type Stimentioning

confidence: 99%

Adverse Effects of Amphetamines on the Cardiovascular System: Review and Retrospective Analyses of Trends

Al-Imam¹

2017

GJHS

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Background: Amphetamine and amphetamine-type stimulants are powerful physical and psychostimulants; they are phenethylamine derivatives. The use of amphetamines can be either medicinal or illicit. Several amphetamines have been redesigned into illegal drugs of potent properties, also known as research chemicals and designer drugs. Hence, they are named novel (new) psychoactive substances (NPS). Materials and Methods:This study is a hybrid study of; data crunching and retrospective analysis of a trends database (1), and a systematic review of literature in relation to the amphetamines-induced adverse effects on the cardiovascular system (2). Google Trends database has been analysed in retrospect (2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017) to evaluate the attentiveness of surface web users towards amphetamine and a potent renowned amphetamine derivative known as captagon (fenethylline).Results: Amphetamines appear to be highly popular worldwide, particularly in the developed world including North America and European countries, and to a less extent in the developing countries including the Middle East. However, the trends are oscillating with time with significant year-to-year changes although there was some steadiness in the temporal patterns (trends), for example in 2013-2014 (p-value=0.258). Variations in the trends were found to be correlated with global events including international terrorism. The adverse effects of amphetamines were found to be highly related to the cardiovascular system with a high incidence of intoxications and deaths among substance (ab)users. Conclusion:Several amphetamines are potent and used illicitly beyond their original therapeutic potential, as in the case of captagon, culminating in monumental public and economic threats. Legalising bodies should exercise tremendous and systematic efforts to counteract these threats. Database analyses can provide an accurate insight into this phenomenon that has been growing exponentially in the past decade.

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More Diseases Tracked by Using Google Trends

Cited by 225 publications

References 3 publications

Detecting internet activity for erectile dysfunction using search engine query data in the Republic of Ireland

Detecting internet activity for erectile dysfunction using search engine query data in the Republic of Ireland

Global Disease Monitoring and Forecasting with Wikipedia

Adverse Effects of Amphetamines on the Cardiovascular System: Review and Retrospective Analyses of Trends

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