Measuring the impact of health policies using Internet search patterns: the case of abortion

BACKGROUND: Internet search patterns have emerged as a novel data source for monitoring infectious disease trends. We propose that these data can also be used more broadly to study the impact of health policies across different regions in a more efficient and timely manner. METHODS: As a test use case, we studied the relationships between abortion-related search volume, local abortion rates, and local abortion policies available for study. RESULTS: Our initial integrative analysis found that, both in the US and internationally, the volume of Internet searches for abortion is inversely proportional to local abortion rates and directly proportional to local restrictions on abortion. CONCLUSION: These findings are consistent with published evidence that local restrictions on abortion lead individuals to seek abortion services outside of their area. Further validation of these methods has the potential to produce a timely, complementary data source for studying the effects of health policies.