scholarly journals Tracking COVID-19 using online search

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasileios Lampos ◽  
Maimuna S. Majumder ◽  
Elad Yom-Tov ◽  
Michael Edelstein ◽  
Simon Moura ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Time Series ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Online Search ◽  
Search Activity ◽  
Web Searches ◽  
Search Data ◽  
Modelling Techniques ◽  
Short Term Forecasting

AbstractPrevious research has demonstrated that various properties of infectious diseases can be inferred from online search behaviour. In this work we use time series of online search query frequencies to gain insights about the prevalence of COVID-19 in multiple countries. We first develop unsupervised modelling techniques based on associated symptom categories identified by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service and Public Health England. We then attempt to minimise an expected bias in these signals caused by public interest—as opposed to infections—using the proportion of news media coverage devoted to COVID-19 as a proxy indicator. Our analysis indicates that models based on online searches precede the reported confirmed cases and deaths by 16.7 (10.2–23.2) and 22.1 (17.4–26.9) days, respectively. We also investigate transfer learning techniques for mapping supervised models from countries where the spread of the disease has progressed extensively to countries that are in earlier phases of their respective epidemic curves. Furthermore, we compare time series of online search activity against confirmed COVID-19 cases or deaths jointly across multiple countries, uncovering interesting querying patterns, including the finding that rarer symptoms are better predictors than common ones. Finally, we show that web searches improve the short-term forecasting accuracy of autoregressive models for COVID-19 deaths. Our work provides evidence that online search data can be used to develop complementary public health surveillance methods to help inform the COVID-19 response in conjunction with more established approaches.

Abstract T P273: Internet-Based Information Seeking Behavior for Transient Ischemic Attack

Stroke ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vida Abedi ◽  
Marieme Mbaye ◽  
Georgios Tsivgoulis ◽  
Shailesh Male ◽  
Nitin Goyal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Transient Ischemic Attack ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Information Seeking Behavior ◽  
Online Search ◽  
Seeking Behavior ◽  
Search Data ◽  
Ischemic Attack ◽  
Google Search

Background &Purpose: In recent years, Internet became an increasingly important tool for accessing health information and is being used more frequently to promote public health. In this study, we used Google search data to explore information seeking behavior for transient ischemic attack (TIA). Methods: We selected two groups of keywords related to TIA -“Transient Ischemic Attack” and “Mini Stroke” - after examining several related search keywords. We obtained all available online search data performed in the United States from the Google search engine for a ten year span - January 2004 to December 2013. The monthly and daily search data for the selected keywords were analyzed - using a moving window strategy - to explore the trends, peaks and declining effects. Results: There were three significant concurrent peaks in the Google search data for the selected keywords. Each peak was directly associated with media coverage and news headlines related to the incident of TIA in a public figure. (Figure 1) Following each event, it took an average of two weeks for the search trend to return to its respective average value. The trend was steady for “Transient Ischemic Attack”; however, the search interest for the keyword “mini stroke” shows a steady increase. The overall search interest for the selected keywords was significantly higher in the southeastern United States. Conclusions: Our study shows that changes in online search behavior can be associated with media coverage of key events (in our case TIA) in public figures. These findings suggest that online health promotion campaigns might be more effective if increased promptly after similar media coverage.

Stigmatizing language in news media coverage of the opioid epidemic: Implications for public health

2019 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 110-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma E. McGinty ◽  
Elizabeth M. Stone ◽  
Alene Kennedy-Hendricks ◽  
Colleen L. Barry
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Opioid Epidemic

scholarly journals Blurred Shots: Investigating the Information Crisis Around Vaccination in Italy

2020 ◽  
pp. 000276422091024
Author(s):  
Alessandro Lovari ◽  
Valentina Martino ◽  
Nicola Righetti
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Combining Data ◽  
Italian Context

This article aims at exploring a case of information crisis in Italy through the lens of vaccination-related topics. Such a controversial issue, dividing public opinion and political agendas, has received diverse information coverage and public policies over time in the Italian context, whose situation appears quite unique compared with other countries because of a strong media spectacularization and politicization of the topic. In particular, approval of the “Lorenzin Decree,” increasing the number of mandatory vaccinations from 4 to 10, generated a nationwide debate that divided public opinion and political parties, triggering a complex informative crisis and fostering the perception of a social emergency on social media. This resulted in negative stress on lay publics and on the public health system. The study adopted an interdisciplinary framework, including political science, public relations, and health communication studies, as well as a mixed-method approach, combining data mining techniques related to news media coverage and social media engagement, with in-depth interviews to key experts, selected among researchers, journalists, and communication managers. The article investigates reasons for the information crisis and identifies possible solutions and interventions to improve the effectiveness of public health communication and mitigate the social consequences of misinformation around vaccination.

scholarly journals Early detection of perceived risk among users of a UK travel health website compared with internet search activity and media coverage during the 2015–2016 Zika virus outbreak: an observational study

BMJ Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. e015831 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Petersen ◽  
Hilary Simons ◽  
Dipti Patel ◽  
Joanne Freedman
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Zika Virus ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Perceived Risk ◽  
Time Trends ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Search Activity ◽  
Travel Health ◽  
Global Threat

ObjectivesThe Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak in the Americas in 2015–2016 posed a novel global threat due to the association with congenital malformations and its rapid spread. Timely information about the spread of the disease was paramount to public health bodies issuing travel advisories. This paper looks at the online interaction with a national travel health website during the outbreak and compares this to trends in internet searches and news media output.MethodsTime trends were created for weekly views of ZIKV-related pages on a UK travel health website, relative search volumes for ‘Zika’ on Google UK, ZIKV-related items aggregated by Google UK News and rank of ZIKV travel advisories among all other pages between 15 November 2015 and 20 August 2016.ResultsTime trends in traffic to the travel health website corresponded with Google searches, but less so with media items due to intense coverage of the Rio Olympics. Travel advisories for pregnant women were issued from 7 December 2015 and began to increase in popularity (rank) from early January 2016, weeks before a surge in interest as measured by Google searches/news items at the end of January 2016.ConclusionsThe study showed an amplification of perceived risk among users of a national travel health website weeks before the initial surge in public interest. This suggests a potential value for tools to detect changes in online information seeking behaviours for predicting periods of high demand where the routine capability of travel health services could be exceeded.

scholarly journals Analyzing Spanish News Frames on Twitter during COVID-19—A Network Study of El País and El Mundo

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (15) ◽  
pp. 5414
Author(s):  
Jingyuan Yu ◽  
Yanqin Lu ◽  
Juan Muñoz-Justicia
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Development Process ◽  
Recovery Period ◽  
First Century ◽  
Automatic Process ◽  
News Frames ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Twitter Account

While COVID-19 is becoming one of the most severe public health crises in the twenty-first century, media coverage about this pandemic is getting more important than ever to make people informed. Drawing on data scraped from Twitter, this study aims to analyze and compare the news updates of two main Spanish newspapers El País and El Mundo during the pandemic. Throughout an automatic process of topic modeling and network analysis methods, this study identifies eight news frames for each newspaper’s Twitter account. Furthermore, the whole pandemic development process is split into three periods—the pre-crisis period, the lockdown period and the recovery period. The networks of the computed frames are visualized by these three segments. This paper contributes to the understanding of how Spanish news media cover public health crises on social media platforms.

Geospatial Distribution of Local Health Department Tweets and Online Searches About Ebola During the 2014 Ebola Outbreak

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Wong ◽  
Jenine K. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
New York ◽  
Health Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Health ◽  
Search Term ◽  
Online Search ◽  
Search Activity ◽  
Online Searches ◽  
Per Capita

AbstractObjectiveThis study compared the geospatial distribution of Ebola tweets from local health departments (LHDs) to online searches about Ebola across the United States during the 2014 Ebola outbreak.MethodsBetween September and November 2014, we collected all tweets sent by 287 LHDs known to be using Twitter. Coordinates for each Ebola tweet were imported into ArcGIS 10.2.2 to display the distribution of tweets. Online searches with the search term “Ebola” were obtained from Google Trends. A Pearson’s correlation test was performed to assess the relationship between online search activity and per capita number of LHD Ebola tweets by state.ResultsEbola tweets from LHDs were concentrated in cities across the northeast states, including Philadelphia and New York City. In contrast, states with the highest online search queries for Ebola were primarily in the south, particularly Oklahoma and Texas. A weak, negative, non-significant correlation (r=−0.03, P=0.83, 95% CI: −0.30, 0.25) was observed between online search activity and per capita number of LHD Ebola tweets by state.ConclusionsWe recommend that LHDs consider using social media to communicate possible disease outbreaks in a timely manner, and that they consider using online search data to tailor their messages to align with the public health interests of their constituents. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018; 12: 287–290)

scholarly journals Mapping of Health Literacy and Social Panic Via Web Search Data During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency: Infodemiological Study

10.2196/18831 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. e18831 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenjie Xu ◽  
Xinyu Zhang ◽  
Yaogang Wang
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Return To Work ◽  
Web Search ◽  
Prevention Measures ◽  
Web Searches ◽  
Search Data ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
The Impact

Background Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a type of pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus that was discovered in 2019. As of May 6, 2020, 84,407 cases and 4643 deaths have been confirmed in China. The Chinese population has expressed great concern since the COVID-19 outbreak. Meanwhile, an average of 1 billion people per day are using the Baidu search engine to find COVID-19–related health information. Objective The aim of this paper is to analyze web search data volumes related to COVID-19 in China. Methods We conducted an infodemiological study to analyze web search data volumes related to COVID-19. Using Baidu Index data, we assessed the search frequencies of specific search terms in Baidu to describe the impact of COVID-19 on public health, psychology, behaviors, lifestyles, and social policies (from February 11, 2020, to March 17, 2020). Results The search frequency related to COVID-19 has increased significantly since February 11th. Our heat maps demonstrate that citizens in Wuhan, Hubei Province, express more concern about COVID-19 than citizens from other cities since the outbreak first occurred in Wuhan. Wuhan citizens frequently searched for content related to “medical help,” “protective materials,” and “pandemic progress.” Web searches for “return to work” and “go back to school” have increased eight-fold compared to the previous month. Searches for content related to “closed community and remote office” have continued to rise, and searches for “remote office demand” have risen by 663% from the previous quarter. Employees who have returned to work have mainly engaged in the following web searches: “return to work and prevention measures,” “return to work guarantee policy,” and “time to return to work.” Provinces with large, educated populations (eg, Henan, Hebei, and Shandong) have been focusing on “online education” whereas medium-sized cities have been paying more attention to “online medical care.” Conclusions Our findings suggest that web search data may reflect changes in health literacy, social panic, and prevention and control policies in response to COVID-19.

scholarly journals Mapping of Health Literacy and Social Panic Via Web Search Data During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency: Infodemiological Study (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenjie Xu ◽  
Xinyu Zhang ◽  
Yaogang Wang
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Online Education ◽  
Return To Work ◽  
Web Search ◽  
Prevention Measures ◽  
Web Searches ◽  
Search Data ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
The Impact

BACKGROUND Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a type of pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus that was discovered in 2019. As of May 6, 2020, 84,407 cases and 4643 deaths have been confirmed in China. The Chinese population has expressed great concern since the COVID-19 outbreak. Meanwhile, an average of 1 billion people per day are using the Baidu search engine to find COVID-19–related health information. OBJECTIVE The aim of this paper is to analyze web search data volumes related to COVID-19 in China. METHODS We conducted an infodemiological study to analyze web search data volumes related to COVID-19. Using Baidu Index data, we assessed the search frequencies of specific search terms in Baidu to describe the impact of COVID-19 on public health, psychology, behaviors, lifestyles, and social policies (from February 11, 2020, to March 17, 2020). RESULTS The search frequency related to COVID-19 has increased significantly since February 11th. Our heat maps demonstrate that citizens in Wuhan, Hubei Province, express more concern about COVID-19 than citizens from other cities since the outbreak first occurred in Wuhan. Wuhan citizens frequently searched for content related to “medical help,” “protective materials,” and “pandemic progress.” Web searches for “return to work” and “go back to school” have increased eight-fold compared to the previous month. Searches for content related to “closed community and remote office” have continued to rise, and searches for “remote office demand” have risen by 663% from the previous quarter. Employees who have returned to work have mainly engaged in the following web searches: “return to work and prevention measures,” “return to work guarantee policy,” and “time to return to work.” Provinces with large, educated populations (eg, Henan, Hebei, and Shandong) have been focusing on “online education” whereas medium-sized cities have been paying more attention to “online medical care.” CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that web search data may reflect changes in health literacy, social panic, and prevention and control policies in response to COVID-19.

scholarly journals Trends of Online Search of COVID-19 Related Terms in Cyprus

Epidemiologia ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-45
Author(s):  
Marios Anastasiou ◽  
Katerina Pantavou ◽  
Anneza Yiallourou ◽  
Stefanos Bonovas ◽  
Georgios K. Nikolopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Planning ◽  
Shortness Of Breath ◽  
Online Search ◽  
Web Searches ◽  
Public Health Emergencies ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Search Volume ◽  
Health Authorities ◽  
The City

Knowledge of trends in web searches provides useful information for various purposes, including responses to public health emergencies. This work aims to analyze the popularity of internet search queries for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and COVID-19 symptoms in Cyprus. Query data for the term Coronavirus were retrieved from Google Trends website between 19 January and 30 June 2020. The study focused on Cyprus and the four most populated cities: Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca, and Paphos. COVID-19 symptoms including fever, cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, and myalgia were considered in the analysis. Daily and weekly search volumes were described, and their correlation with the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic and important announcements or events were examined. Three periods of interest peaks were identified in Cyprus. The highest interest in COVID-19-related terms was found in the city of Paphos. The most popular symptoms were fever and cough, and the symptom with the highest increase in popularity was myalgia. At the beginning of the pandemic, the search volume of COVID-19 grew substantially when governments, major organizations, and high-profile figures, globally and locally, made important announcements regarding COVID-19. Health authorities in Cyprus and elsewhere could benefit from constantly monitoring the online interest of the population in order to get timely information that could be used in public health planning and response.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document