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COVID-19-Related Web Search Behaviors and Infodemic Attitudes in Italy: Infodemiological Study

BACKGROUND: Since the beginning of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, fake news and misleading information have circulated worldwide, which can profoundly affect public health communication. OBJECTIVE: We investigated online search behavior related to the COVID-19 outbreak and the at...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Rovetta, Alessandro, Bhagavathula, Akshaya Srikanth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7202310/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32338613
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/19374
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author Rovetta, Alessandro
Bhagavathula, Akshaya Srikanth
author_facet Rovetta, Alessandro
Bhagavathula, Akshaya Srikanth
author_sort Rovetta, Alessandro
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Since the beginning of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, fake news and misleading information have circulated worldwide, which can profoundly affect public health communication. OBJECTIVE: We investigated online search behavior related to the COVID-19 outbreak and the attitudes of “infodemic monikers” (ie, erroneous information that gives rise to interpretative mistakes, fake news, episodes of racism, etc) circulating in Italy. METHODS: By using Google Trends to explore the internet search activity related to COVID-19 from January to March 2020, article titles from the most read newspapers and government websites were mined to investigate the attitudes of infodemic monikers circulating across various regions and cities in Italy. Search volume values and average peak comparison (APC) values were used to analyze the results. RESULTS: Keywords such as “novel coronavirus,” “China coronavirus,” “COVID-19,” “2019-nCOV,” and “SARS-COV-2” were the top infodemic and scientific COVID-19 terms trending in Italy. The top five searches related to health were “face masks,” “amuchina” (disinfectant), “symptoms of the novel coronavirus,” “health bulletin,” and “vaccines for coronavirus.” The regions of Umbria and Basilicata recorded a high number of infodemic monikers (APC weighted total >140). Misinformation was widely circulated in the Campania region, and racism-related information was widespread in Umbria and Basilicata. These monikers were frequently searched (APC weighted total >100) in more than 10 major cities in Italy, including Rome. CONCLUSIONS: We identified a growing regional and population-level interest in COVID-19 in Italy. The majority of searches were related to amuchina, face masks, health bulletins, and COVID-19 symptoms. Since a large number of infodemic monikers were observed across Italy, we recommend that health agencies use Google Trends to predict human behavior as well as to manage misinformation circulation in Italy.
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spelling pubmed-72023102020-05-08 COVID-19-Related Web Search Behaviors and Infodemic Attitudes in Italy: Infodemiological Study Rovetta, Alessandro Bhagavathula, Akshaya Srikanth JMIR Public Health Surveill Original Paper BACKGROUND: Since the beginning of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, fake news and misleading information have circulated worldwide, which can profoundly affect public health communication. OBJECTIVE: We investigated online search behavior related to the COVID-19 outbreak and the attitudes of “infodemic monikers” (ie, erroneous information that gives rise to interpretative mistakes, fake news, episodes of racism, etc) circulating in Italy. METHODS: By using Google Trends to explore the internet search activity related to COVID-19 from January to March 2020, article titles from the most read newspapers and government websites were mined to investigate the attitudes of infodemic monikers circulating across various regions and cities in Italy. Search volume values and average peak comparison (APC) values were used to analyze the results. RESULTS: Keywords such as “novel coronavirus,” “China coronavirus,” “COVID-19,” “2019-nCOV,” and “SARS-COV-2” were the top infodemic and scientific COVID-19 terms trending in Italy. The top five searches related to health were “face masks,” “amuchina” (disinfectant), “symptoms of the novel coronavirus,” “health bulletin,” and “vaccines for coronavirus.” The regions of Umbria and Basilicata recorded a high number of infodemic monikers (APC weighted total >140). Misinformation was widely circulated in the Campania region, and racism-related information was widespread in Umbria and Basilicata. These monikers were frequently searched (APC weighted total >100) in more than 10 major cities in Italy, including Rome. CONCLUSIONS: We identified a growing regional and population-level interest in COVID-19 in Italy. The majority of searches were related to amuchina, face masks, health bulletins, and COVID-19 symptoms. Since a large number of infodemic monikers were observed across Italy, we recommend that health agencies use Google Trends to predict human behavior as well as to manage misinformation circulation in Italy. JMIR Publications 2020-05-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7202310/ /pubmed/32338613 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/19374 Text en ©Alessandro Rovetta, Akshaya Srikanth Bhagavathula. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 05.05.2020. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://publichealth.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Rovetta, Alessandro
Bhagavathula, Akshaya Srikanth
COVID-19-Related Web Search Behaviors and Infodemic Attitudes in Italy: Infodemiological Study
title COVID-19-Related Web Search Behaviors and Infodemic Attitudes in Italy: Infodemiological Study
title_full COVID-19-Related Web Search Behaviors and Infodemic Attitudes in Italy: Infodemiological Study
title_fullStr COVID-19-Related Web Search Behaviors and Infodemic Attitudes in Italy: Infodemiological Study
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19-Related Web Search Behaviors and Infodemic Attitudes in Italy: Infodemiological Study
title_short COVID-19-Related Web Search Behaviors and Infodemic Attitudes in Italy: Infodemiological Study
title_sort covid-19-related web search behaviors and infodemic attitudes in italy: infodemiological study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7202310/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32338613
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/19374
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