Seifter Ari, Schwarzwalder Alison, Geis Kate, Aucott John
Lyme Disease Research Foundation of Maryland, 10755 Falls Road, Lutherville, MD 21093, USA.
Geospat Health. 2010 May;4(2):135-7. doi: 10.4081/gh.2010.195.
Internet search engines have become an increasingly popular resource for accessing health-related information. The key words used as well as the number and geographic location of searches can provide trend data, as have recently been made available by Google Trends. We report briefly on exploring this resource using Lyme disease as an example because it has well-described seasonal and geographic patterns. We found that search traffic for the string "Lyme disease" reflected increased likelihood of exposure during spring and summer months; conversely, the string "cough" had higher relative traffic during winter months. The cities and states with the highest amount of search traffic for "Lyme disease" overlapped considerably with those where Lyme is known to be endemic. Despite limitations to over-interpretation, we found Google Trends to approximate certain trends previously identified in the epidemiology of Lyme disease. The generation of this type of data may have valuable future implications in aiding surveillance of a broad range of diseases.
互联网搜索引擎已成为获取健康相关信息的日益流行的资源。正如谷歌趋势最近所提供的那样，所使用的关键词以及搜索的数量和地理位置可以提供趋势数据。我们以莱姆病为例简要报告探索这一资源的情况，因为莱姆病具有明确描述的季节性和地理模式。我们发现，搜索词“莱姆病”的搜索流量反映出春夏季接触风险增加；相反，搜索词“咳嗽”在冬季的相对流量更高。“莱姆病”搜索流量最高的城市和州与已知莱姆病流行的地区有很大重叠。尽管过度解读存在局限性，但我们发现谷歌趋势能大致反映莱姆病流行病学中先前确定的某些趋势。这类数据的生成可能对协助广泛疾病的监测具有宝贵的未来意义。
