Foroughi Forough, Lam Alfred K-Y, Lim Megan S C, Saremi Nassim, Ahmadvand Alireza
Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Islamic Republic Of Iran.
Cancer Molecular Pathology, School of Medicine and Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia.
JMIR Cancer. 2016 May 4;2(1):e5. doi: 10.2196/cancer.5212.
The infodemiological analysis of queries from search engines to shed light on the status of various noncommunicable diseases has gained increasing popularity in recent years.
The aim of the study was to determine the international perspective on the distribution of information seeking in Google regarding "cancer" in major English-speaking countries.
We used Google Trends service to assess people's interest in searching about "Cancer" classified as "Disease," from January 2004 to December 2015 in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Then, we evaluated top cities and their relative search volumes (SVs) and country-specific "Top searches" and "Rising searches." We also evaluated the cross-country correlations of SVs for cancer, as well as rank correlations of SVs from 2010 to 2014 with the incidence of cancer in 2012 in the abovementioned countries.
From 2004 to 2015, the United States (relative SV [from 100]: 63), Canada (62), and Australia (61) were the top countries searching for cancer in Google, followed by New Zealand (54) and the United Kingdom (48). There was a consistent seasonality pattern in searching for cancer in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Baltimore (United States), St John's (Canada), Sydney (Australia), Otaika (New Zealand), and Saint Albans (United Kingdom) had the highest search interest in their corresponding countries. "Breast cancer" was the cancer entity that consistently appeared high in the list of top searches in all 5 countries. The "Rising searches" were "pancreatic cancer" in Canada and "ovarian cancer" in New Zealand. Cross-correlation of SVs was strong between the United States, Canada, and Australia (>.70, P<.01).
Cancer maintained its popularity as a search term for people in the United States, Canada, and Australia, comparably higher than New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The increased interest in searching for keywords related to cancer shows the possible effectiveness of awareness campaigns in increasing societal demand for health information on the Web, to be met in community-wide communication or awareness interventions.
近年来，通过对搜索引擎查询进行信息流行病学分析以了解各种非传染性疾病的状况越来越受到关注。
本研究旨在确定主要英语国家中，谷歌上关于“癌症”的信息搜索分布的国际视角。
我们使用谷歌趋势服务，评估2004年1月至2015年12月期间，澳大利亚、加拿大、新西兰、英国和美国民众对归类为“疾病”的“癌症”搜索的兴趣。然后，我们评估了排名靠前的城市及其相对搜索量（SVs）以及各国特定的“热门搜索”和“上升搜索”。我们还评估了各国癌症搜索量的交叉相关性，以及2010年至2014年搜索量与上述国家2012年癌症发病率的秩相关性。
2004年至2015年期间，美国（相对搜索量[以100计]：63）、加拿大（62）和澳大利亚（61）是谷歌上搜索癌症最多的国家，其次是新西兰（54）和英国（48）。在美国、加拿大、澳大利亚和新西兰，搜索癌症存在一致的季节性模式。巴尔的摩（美国）、圣约翰斯（加拿大）、悉尼（澳大利亚）、奥泰卡（新西兰）和圣奥尔本斯（英国）在各自国家的搜索兴趣最高。“乳腺癌”在所有5个国家的热门搜索列表中一直名列前茅。“上升搜索”在加拿大是“胰腺癌”，在新西兰是“卵巢癌”。美国、加拿大和澳大利亚之间的搜索量交叉相关性很强（>.70，P<.01）。
癌症在美国、加拿大和澳大利亚仍然是人们热门的搜索词，比新西兰和英国的热度要高。对与癌症相关关键词搜索兴趣的增加表明，提高公众意识的活动在增加社会对网络健康信息需求方面可能是有效的，这可以通过社区范围内的沟通或提高公众意识的干预措施来实现。
