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Infodemiologists Beware: Recent Changes to the Google Health Trends API Result in Incomparable Data as of 1 January 2022

In an ever-increasingly online world, many Internet users seek information from online search engines such as Google. Accessing such search activity allows infodemiologists a glimpse into the collective online mind. Tools such as Google Trends and Google Health Trends (GHT) can be used to gauge sear...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Myburgh, Pieter Hermanus
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9692853/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36430115
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192215396
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author Myburgh, Pieter Hermanus
author_facet Myburgh, Pieter Hermanus
author_sort Myburgh, Pieter Hermanus
collection PubMed
description In an ever-increasingly online world, many Internet users seek information from online search engines such as Google. Accessing such search activity allows infodemiologists a glimpse into the collective online mind. Tools such as Google Trends and Google Health Trends (GHT) can be used to gauge search activity in key geographical regions and for specific periods of time. Recently, Google implemented changes to the GHT platform. Evidence is provided here for an initial exploration of how this change impacted the data obtained from GHT. Comparing 177 weekly probabilities for short search sessions of 421 Freebase IDs in thirty geographies extracted from GHT both before and after the implemented change, a low correlation (median of all Spearman ρ = 0.262 [IQR 0.04; 0.53]) between these data was observed for the year 2022. In general, the extracted values are higher after the implemented changes, compared to the values extracted before the change. Future research using the GHT API should not attribute increases in GHT data from 1 January 2022 onward as being reflective of increased search activity for a specific keyword, but rather attribute it to the implemented change to the GHT sampling strategy.
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spelling pubmed-96928532022-11-26 Infodemiologists Beware: Recent Changes to the Google Health Trends API Result in Incomparable Data as of 1 January 2022 Myburgh, Pieter Hermanus Int J Environ Res Public Health Communication In an ever-increasingly online world, many Internet users seek information from online search engines such as Google. Accessing such search activity allows infodemiologists a glimpse into the collective online mind. Tools such as Google Trends and Google Health Trends (GHT) can be used to gauge search activity in key geographical regions and for specific periods of time. Recently, Google implemented changes to the GHT platform. Evidence is provided here for an initial exploration of how this change impacted the data obtained from GHT. Comparing 177 weekly probabilities for short search sessions of 421 Freebase IDs in thirty geographies extracted from GHT both before and after the implemented change, a low correlation (median of all Spearman ρ = 0.262 [IQR 0.04; 0.53]) between these data was observed for the year 2022. In general, the extracted values are higher after the implemented changes, compared to the values extracted before the change. Future research using the GHT API should not attribute increases in GHT data from 1 January 2022 onward as being reflective of increased search activity for a specific keyword, but rather attribute it to the implemented change to the GHT sampling strategy. MDPI 2022-11-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9692853/ /pubmed/36430115 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192215396 Text en © 2022 by the author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Myburgh, Pieter Hermanus
Infodemiologists Beware: Recent Changes to the Google Health Trends API Result in Incomparable Data as of 1 January 2022
title Infodemiologists Beware: Recent Changes to the Google Health Trends API Result in Incomparable Data as of 1 January 2022
title_full Infodemiologists Beware: Recent Changes to the Google Health Trends API Result in Incomparable Data as of 1 January 2022
title_fullStr Infodemiologists Beware: Recent Changes to the Google Health Trends API Result in Incomparable Data as of 1 January 2022
title_full_unstemmed Infodemiologists Beware: Recent Changes to the Google Health Trends API Result in Incomparable Data as of 1 January 2022
title_short Infodemiologists Beware: Recent Changes to the Google Health Trends API Result in Incomparable Data as of 1 January 2022
title_sort infodemiologists beware: recent changes to the google health trends api result in incomparable data as of 1 january 2022
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9692853/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36430115
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192215396
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