Using Google Trends to investigate global COPD awareness
- Anna Boehm1,3,
- Alex Pizzini1,3⇑,
- Thomas Sonnweber1,
- Judith Loeffler-Ragg1,
- Claudia Lamina2,
- Guenter Weiss1 and
- Ivan Tancevski1
- 1Dept of Internal Medicine II, Infectious Diseases, Pneumology, Rheumatology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria
- 2Division of Genetic Epidemiology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria
- 3A. Boehm and A. Pizzini contributed equally to this manuscript
- Alex Pizzini, Dept of Internal Medicine II, Infectious Diseases, Pneumology, Rheumatology, Innsbruck Medical University, Anichstraße 35, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria. E-mail: alex.pizzini{at}i-med.ac.at
Abstract
Google Trends provides many features that might help to identify geographic regions with low disease awareness and could contribute to a better understanding of the current needs of COPD patients http://bit.ly/2YXfGHz
From the authors:
We appreciate the thoughtful comments of C-N. Zhao and co-workers regarding our research article “Assessing global COPD awareness with Google Trends” [1].
We kindly would like to point out that we did not observe a rise in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)-related awareness. In fact, our study stresses the discrepancy between rising numbers in prevalence and mortality related to COPD in the real world and steady relative search volumes (RSV) in Google Trends as a surrogate parameter for COPD awareness. RSV peaks were observed during winter, as well as in the COPD awareness month, November. However, after statistically correcting for a seasonal component, no overall increase in RSV for COPD was observed.
Google Trends offers many possibilities to analyse specific search terms/topics. Notably, the ability to characterise queries according to their geographic distribution may add great scientific value to specific research questions, as shown by Ginsberg et al. [2]. Recent studies reported that search terms with seasonal components may have an inverse relationship when data is split according to Northern and Southern hemisphere [3–5]. Accordingly, a study by Jenkins et al. [6] described this phenomenon when analysing seasonal trends of acute COPD exacerbations. However, when analysing Internet search queries, it is important to consider that the Northern hemisphere is dominated by high-income countries with broad Internet access and use, likely causing a bias related to the amount of Internet traffic (figure 1). Thus, we decided to compare our results with mortality data from high-income countries only. We acknowledge that our study does not assess awareness in low-income countries, where COPD is a largely neglected disease. In this context, Google Trends may help to identify geographic regions with urgent needs to improve COPD-related healthcare.
Google Trends also has the option to filter the results according to specific categories, such as “Arts & Entertainment”, “Books & Literature”, “Science” or “HEALTH”. The algorithms used by Google Trends for categorisation, however, are not transparent and might change over time. We, therefore, chose the “all categories” option, which moreover will also facilitate reproducibility, an important issue when trying to establish a standardised methodology for further Google Trends-based studies.
Finally, Google Trends suggests “hot topics” and “top rising topics” (i.e. “is COPD contagious”, “how do you get COPD” or “COPD life expectancy”) which are powerful tools to identify matters of particular interest related to “COPD” queries. The suggested topics might help to understand the current needs of COPD patients, as they summarise the present most substantial search queries. An in-depth analysis of these topics may help to optimise patient education and public awareness, and future studies focusing on such a patient-oriented approach are heavily awaited.
Footnotes
Conflict of interest: A. Boehm has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: A. Pizzini has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: T. Sonnweber has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: J. Loeffler-Ragg has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: C. Lamina has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: G. Weiss has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: I. Tancevski has nothing to disclose.
- Received July 6, 2019.
- Accepted July 9, 2019.
- Copyright ©ERS 2019