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The Influence of Media Coverage and Governmental Policies on Google Queries Related to COVID-19 Cutaneous Symptoms: Infodemiology Study

BACKGROUND: During COVID-19, studies have reported the appearance of internet searches for disease symptoms before their validation by the World Health Organization. This suggested that monitoring of these searches with tools including Google Trends may help monitor the pandemic itself. In Europe an...

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Autores principales: Huynh Dagher, Solene, Lamé, Guillaume, Hubiche, Thomas, Ezzedine, Khaled, Duong, Tu Anh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7909455/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33513563
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/25651
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author Huynh Dagher, Solene
Lamé, Guillaume
Hubiche, Thomas
Ezzedine, Khaled
Duong, Tu Anh
author_facet Huynh Dagher, Solene
Lamé, Guillaume
Hubiche, Thomas
Ezzedine, Khaled
Duong, Tu Anh
author_sort Huynh Dagher, Solene
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: During COVID-19, studies have reported the appearance of internet searches for disease symptoms before their validation by the World Health Organization. This suggested that monitoring of these searches with tools including Google Trends may help monitor the pandemic itself. In Europe and North America, dermatologists reported an unexpected outbreak of cutaneous acral lesions (eg, chilblain-like lesions) in April 2020. However, external factors such as public communications may also hinder the use of Google Trends as an infodemiology tool. OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to assess the impact of media announcements and lockdown enforcement on internet searches related to cutaneous acral lesions during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. METHODS: Two searches on Google Trends, including daily relative search volumes for (1) “toe” or “chilblains” and (2) “coronavirus,” were performed from January 1 to May 16, 2020, with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany as the countries of choice. The ratio of interest over time in “chilblains” and “coronavirus” was plotted. To assess the impact of lockdown enforcement and media coverage on these internet searches, we performed an interrupted time-series analysis for each country. RESULTS: The ratio of interest over time in “chilblains” to “coronavirus” showed a constant upward trend. In France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, lockdown enforcement was associated with a significant slope change for “chilblain” searches with a variation coefficient of 1.06 (SE 0.42) (P=0.01), 1.04 (SE 0.28) (P<.01), and 1.21 (SE 0.44) (P=0.01), respectively. After media announcements, these ratios significantly increased in France, Spain, Italy, and the United States with variation coefficients of 18.95 (SE 5.77) (P=.001), 31.31 (SE 6.31) (P<.001), 14.57 (SE 6.33) (P=.02), and 11.24 (SE 4.93) (P=.02), respectively, followed by a significant downward trend in France (–1.82 [SE 0.45]), Spain (–1.10 [SE 0.38]), and Italy (–0.93 [SE 0.33]) (P<.001, P=0.004, and P<.001, respectively). The adjusted R(2) values were 0.311, 0.351, 0.325, and 0.305 for France, Spain, Italy, and the United States, respectively, suggesting an average correlation between time and the search volume; however, this correlation was weak for Germany and the United Kingdom. CONCLUSIONS: To date, the association between chilblain-like lesions and COVID-19 remains controversial; however, our results indicate that Google queries of “chilblain” were highly influenced by media coverage and government policies, indicating that caution should be exercised when using Google Trends as a monitoring tool for emerging diseases.
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spelling pubmed-79094552021-03-04 The Influence of Media Coverage and Governmental Policies on Google Queries Related to COVID-19 Cutaneous Symptoms: Infodemiology Study Huynh Dagher, Solene Lamé, Guillaume Hubiche, Thomas Ezzedine, Khaled Duong, Tu Anh JMIR Public Health Surveill Original Paper BACKGROUND: During COVID-19, studies have reported the appearance of internet searches for disease symptoms before their validation by the World Health Organization. This suggested that monitoring of these searches with tools including Google Trends may help monitor the pandemic itself. In Europe and North America, dermatologists reported an unexpected outbreak of cutaneous acral lesions (eg, chilblain-like lesions) in April 2020. However, external factors such as public communications may also hinder the use of Google Trends as an infodemiology tool. OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to assess the impact of media announcements and lockdown enforcement on internet searches related to cutaneous acral lesions during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. METHODS: Two searches on Google Trends, including daily relative search volumes for (1) “toe” or “chilblains” and (2) “coronavirus,” were performed from January 1 to May 16, 2020, with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany as the countries of choice. The ratio of interest over time in “chilblains” and “coronavirus” was plotted. To assess the impact of lockdown enforcement and media coverage on these internet searches, we performed an interrupted time-series analysis for each country. RESULTS: The ratio of interest over time in “chilblains” to “coronavirus” showed a constant upward trend. In France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, lockdown enforcement was associated with a significant slope change for “chilblain” searches with a variation coefficient of 1.06 (SE 0.42) (P=0.01), 1.04 (SE 0.28) (P<.01), and 1.21 (SE 0.44) (P=0.01), respectively. After media announcements, these ratios significantly increased in France, Spain, Italy, and the United States with variation coefficients of 18.95 (SE 5.77) (P=.001), 31.31 (SE 6.31) (P<.001), 14.57 (SE 6.33) (P=.02), and 11.24 (SE 4.93) (P=.02), respectively, followed by a significant downward trend in France (–1.82 [SE 0.45]), Spain (–1.10 [SE 0.38]), and Italy (–0.93 [SE 0.33]) (P<.001, P=0.004, and P<.001, respectively). The adjusted R(2) values were 0.311, 0.351, 0.325, and 0.305 for France, Spain, Italy, and the United States, respectively, suggesting an average correlation between time and the search volume; however, this correlation was weak for Germany and the United Kingdom. CONCLUSIONS: To date, the association between chilblain-like lesions and COVID-19 remains controversial; however, our results indicate that Google queries of “chilblain” were highly influenced by media coverage and government policies, indicating that caution should be exercised when using Google Trends as a monitoring tool for emerging diseases. JMIR Publications 2021-02-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7909455/ /pubmed/33513563 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/25651 Text en ©Solene Huynh Dagher, Guillaume Lamé, Thomas Hubiche, Khaled Ezzedine, Tu Anh Duong. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 25.02.2021. 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
Huynh Dagher, Solene
Lamé, Guillaume
Hubiche, Thomas
Ezzedine, Khaled
Duong, Tu Anh
The Influence of Media Coverage and Governmental Policies on Google Queries Related to COVID-19 Cutaneous Symptoms: Infodemiology Study
title The Influence of Media Coverage and Governmental Policies on Google Queries Related to COVID-19 Cutaneous Symptoms: Infodemiology Study
title_full The Influence of Media Coverage and Governmental Policies on Google Queries Related to COVID-19 Cutaneous Symptoms: Infodemiology Study
title_fullStr The Influence of Media Coverage and Governmental Policies on Google Queries Related to COVID-19 Cutaneous Symptoms: Infodemiology Study
title_full_unstemmed The Influence of Media Coverage and Governmental Policies on Google Queries Related to COVID-19 Cutaneous Symptoms: Infodemiology Study
title_short The Influence of Media Coverage and Governmental Policies on Google Queries Related to COVID-19 Cutaneous Symptoms: Infodemiology Study
title_sort influence of media coverage and governmental policies on google queries related to covid-19 cutaneous symptoms: infodemiology study
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7909455/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33513563
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/25651
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