Association between public attention and monkeypox epidemic: A global lag‐correlation analysis

The human monkeypox has become a public health problem globally. Google Trends Index (GTI) is an indicator of public attention, being potential for infectious disease outbreak surveillance. In this study, we used lag‐correlation analysis to evaluate the spearman correlation coefficients between public attention and monkeypox epidemic by −36 to +36 days‐lag in top 20 countries with most cumulated cases until September 30, 2022, the meta‐analyses were performed to pool the coefficients of countries among all lags. We also constructed vector autoregression model and Granger‐causality test to probe the significance of GTI in monkeypox forecasting. The strongest spearman correlation was found at lag +13 day (r = 0.53, 95% confidence interval: 0.371–0.703, p < 0.05). Meta‐analysis showed significantly positive correlation when the lag was from −12 to +36 day, which was most notable on the third posterior day (lag +3 day). The pooled spearman correlation coefficients were all above 0.200 when the lag ranged from +1 to +20 day, and the causality of GTI for daily case was significant in worldwide and multiple countries. The findings suggested a robust association between 13‐days‐priority GTI and daily cases worldwide. This work introduced a potential monitor indicator on the early warning and surveillance of monkeypox outbreak.