The effect of breast cancer awareness month on internet search activity - a comparison with awareness campaigns for lung and prostate cancer

Background: Breast Cancer (BC) is common, with 1 in 8 U.S. women (12.4%) developing invasive breast cancer in their lifetime. BC is associated with the most awareness campaigns with pink ribbon as its symbol. October was earmarked as the breast cancer awareness month (CAM) in 1985. Cervical (CC) and ovarian cancers (OC) are associated with a high mortality as well and have awareness months dedicated to them. The aim of these awareness drives is to change public attitude and help in early detection and ultimately prevention of various cancers. Internet search activity can be used as a method to gauge interest and awareness in the masses. We aimed to assess the popularity of BC compared to other gynecological cancers, including OC and CC. Methods: We compared the relative frequency of search terms “Breast Cancer,” “Ovarian Cancer,” and “Cervical Cancer” between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2017 (n=168 months) using Google Trends, a public web facility of Google Inc. The software designates a reference value of 100 for the point of highest popularity and it provides relative monthly popularity scores for all the terms, which we termed as comparative interest scores (CIS). Within each cancer, average CIS was then compared for their respective awareness months (n=14 months; October for BC, September for OC, and January for CC) to the remaining months (n=154 months). Results: The mean CIS for BC was significantly higher during its CAM, 70.5 as compared to other months 35.9; p<0.001. However, for CC mean CIS during January (7.4) was not different compared to the other months (7.4); P=1.00. And for OC, CIS was significantly higher during its CAM (9.2) compared to other months (7.7); P=.0002. The peak of highest popularity for breast cancer was observed during October 2004 and all peaks corresponded to the CAM; other smaller peaks were seen during significant news events associated with BC, all of which surpassed OC and CC in those months. Overall BC CIS were significantly higher compared to CC (P<.001) and OC (P<.001). Conclusions: We conclude that BC awareness campaigns have succeeded in increasing internet search activity during its CAM but ovarian and cervical cancer campaigns especially when compared to breast cancer have not been as successful. There is still a need to increase awareness among masses. Google trends data also tells us which states in US have more internet search activity compared to others which can be used to target the relatively unaware public.

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Success of Prostate and Testicular Cancer Awareness Campaigns Compared to Breast Cancer Awareness Month According to Internet Search Volumes: A Google Trends Analysis

Urology ◽

10.1016/j.urology.2019.11.062 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 139 ◽

pp. 64-70 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Mehul S. Patel ◽

Joshua A. Halpern ◽

Anuj S. Desai ◽

Mary Kate Keeter ◽

Nelson E. Bennett ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

Testicular Cancer ◽

Google Trends ◽

Internet Search ◽

Cancer Awareness ◽

Awareness Campaigns ◽

Breast Cancer Awareness ◽

Trends Analysis

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Evaluating the impact of cancer awareness months in Mexico using internet search engine analytics.

Journal of Clinical Oncology ◽

10.1200/jco.2019.37.15_suppl.e18056 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 37 (15_suppl) ◽

pp. e18056-e18056

Author(s):

Jorge Humberto Hernandez-Felix ◽

Mónica Isabel Meneses Medina ◽

Edgar Omar Martos Armendariz ◽

Mauricio Rivera Aguilar ◽

Vanessa Rosas Camargo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

Prostate Cancer ◽

Colorectal Cancer ◽

Media Analysis ◽

Cáncer De Mama ◽

Internet Search ◽

Cancer Awareness ◽

Awareness Campaigns ◽

Search Volume ◽

The Impact

e18056 Background: Cancer awareness months (CAM) are a health promotion tool that pursues to increase the public knowledge of a specific type of cancer. Awareness campaigns have benefited from the ease of access to the internet and social media. Analysis of internet search data has been used as an indirect tool to determine the information-seeking patterns of people and may reflect the impact of a campaign. We aim to determine national cancer awareness months’ impact on people’s internet search habits focusing on malignancies that have a specific awareness month in Mexico: breast, colorectal and prostate. Methods: We used Google Trends (GT) to obtain search volume indexes (SVIs), a term designed by GT scaled from 0 to 100 based on total searches during a specified period, of malignancies with an awareness month in Mexico from January 2008 to December 2018. Terms were consulted in Spanish: "cáncer de mama" (breast cancer), "cáncer de colon + cáncer colorrectal" (colon + colorectal cancer), "cáncer de próstata" (prostate cancer). We compared mean SVIs from each cancer awareness month to mean SVIs from the rest of the year using two-tailed two-independent sample T-tests. For prostate and colorectal, SVI’s were compared from the year its CAM was nationally instituted. Results: For breast cancer, mean SVI from October, its awareness month was 54.18 vs 12.09 for the rest of the year (p < 0.001). For colorectal cancer, mean SVI from its awareness month March, was 65.0 vs 55.5 for the rest of the year (p = 0.34). For prostate cancer, mean SVI from November, Mexican prostate awareness month, was 72.0 vs 35.52 for the rest of the year (p = 0.44). Conclusions: Google’s search volume for breast cancer was significantly higher in its awareness month compared to the rest of the year, which proves the impact of its CAM on modifying online activity. For more recently instituted CAMs on prostate and colorectal cancer, search volume didn’t change significantly between their CAM and the rest of the year. There are perhaps lessons to be learned from the breast cancer awareness month campaign which might usefully be adapted for the highest incident malignancies in Mexico.

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Using Google Trends and Twitter for Prostate Cancer Awareness: A Comparative Analysis of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Cureus ◽

10.7759/cureus.13325 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Bradley S Johnson ◽

Samuel Shepard ◽

Trevor Torgeson ◽

Austin Johnson ◽

Megan McMurray ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

Prostate Cancer ◽

Comparative Analysis ◽

Google Trends ◽

Cancer Awareness ◽

Breast Cancer Awareness

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Breast Cancer Awareness Media Campaigns in Pakistan: Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of Women

Global Regional Review ◽

10.31703/grr.2020(v-ii).14 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol V (II) ◽

pp. 130-137

Author(s):

Arsha Saleem Meer ◽

Rao Shahid Mahmood Khan ◽

Malik Adnan Adnan

Keyword(s):

Breast Cancer ◽

General Population ◽

Economic Status ◽

Sampling Technique ◽

Simple Random Sampling ◽

Cancer Awareness ◽

Media Campaigns ◽

Awareness Campaigns ◽

Breast Cancer Awareness

The core objective of the study was to find out the knowledge, attitude and practices of women in the general population and also to investigate the significant role of media awareness campaigns in each aspect of KAP among women. A total number of n=375 women of three renowned universities of southern Punjab were selected through simple random sampling technique. Data was collected through a self-constructed questionnaire comprised of socio-economic status and knowledge, attitude and practices section in their respective educational institutes. Findings indicated that media campaigns had established good knowledge and satisfactory attitude towards breast cancer, but these campaigns are proved less significant in convincing people for screening their breast without any prominent symptoms. This study concluded that media awareness campaigns are significant in providing knowledge and establishing good attitude but less effective in providing knowledge about the importance of screening practices among women of the general population.

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