Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Orthodontics and Public Health, Bauru School of Dentistry, University of São Paulo, Bauru, Brazil.
Caries Res. 2018;52(3):177-188. doi: 10.1159/000485107. Epub 2018 Jan 20.
The diagnosis or suspicion of dental caries can lead people to seek additional information on the Internet through the use of structured queries in search engine tools. This action generates a considerable volume of data, which can be analyzed to provide a better understanding of the public's behavior linked to the consumption of oral health information. This study aimed to assess the volume and profile of web searches on dental caries-related queries performed by Google users from different countries. The monthly variation of the Search Volume Index (SVI) for dental caries was obtained in Google Trends for the period between January 2004 and September 2016. The validity of SVI data was assessed by their levels of stability and correlation with the disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for permanent teeth. In all countries, a trend of an increasing interest of Google users in dental caries issues was revealed by the comparison of the means observed in the predictive models and those in the last 12 months. The interest levels varied throughout the year, with the observation of the highest SVI values in the spring and the lowest in the summer. The most popular queries were markedly associated with symptoms and treatments, with a little interest in prevention. In conclusion, the use of Internet data mining could be helpful in establishing the dental needs of specific population groups in a near real-time, since the web consumption of dental information is increasing in importance and appears to have a direct relation with untreated dental caries.
龋齿的诊断或怀疑可能导致人们通过搜索引擎工具中的结构化查询来获取更多的互联网信息。这种行为产生了大量的数据，可以对其进行分析，以更好地了解与口腔健康信息消费相关的公众行为。本研究旨在评估不同国家的谷歌用户对龋齿相关查询的网络搜索量和搜索内容。从 2004 年 1 月到 2016 年 9 月，谷歌趋势（Google Trends）中获取了龋齿的每月搜索量指数（Search Volume Index，SVI）的变化情况。通过 SVI 数据的稳定性和与恒牙失能调整生命年（disability-adjusted life-years，DALYs）的相关性来评估 SVI 数据的有效性。在所有国家，通过比较预测模型中观察到的平均值和过去 12 个月的平均值，揭示了谷歌用户对龋齿问题的兴趣呈上升趋势。兴趣水平全年有所波动，春季的 SVI 值最高，夏季最低。最受欢迎的查询明显与症状和治疗相关，对预防的关注度较低。总之，互联网数据挖掘的使用可能有助于实时了解特定人群的牙科需求，因为人们对牙科信息的网络消费越来越重要，并且似乎与未治疗的龋齿直接相关。
