School of Medicine, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK.
School of Primary, Community and Social Care, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK.
J Glob Health. 2020 Jun;10(1):010403. doi: 10.7189/jogh.10.010403.
Public health awareness can help prevent illness and result in earlier intervention when it does occur. For this reason, health promotion and disease awareness campaigns have great potential to alleviate the global burden of disease. Global Public Health Days (GPHD) are frequently implemented with this intent, but research evaluating their effectiveness, especially in the developing world setting, is scant.
We aimed to evaluate the impact of four GPHDs (World Cancer Day, World Diabetes Day, World Mental Health Day, World AIDS Day) on online health information seeking behaviour (OHISB) in five Central and South American (CSA) countries which differ in their stage of economic development and epidemiological transition (Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua).
Google Trends data was used as a 'surrogate' of OHISB. This was measured on the 28 days leading up to the GPHD, on the date of the GPHD, and on the seven days following it. The Joinpoint regression programme was used to perform a time trend analysis on the Google Trends data. This allowed us to identify statistically significant time points of a change in trend, which reflect significant 'changes' to OHISB.
GPHDs were inconsistently effective at influencing internet search query activity in the studied countries. In situations where an effect was significant, this impact was consistently short-term, with Relative Search Volume level returning to precampaign levels within 7 days of the GPHD.
Our findings imply the need to revise GPHDs or create alternative health awareness campaigns, perhaps with a more long-term approach and tailored to the specific health needs of the CSA population. Developing effective preventive strategies is vital in helping combat the rising threat of NCDs in this region.
公众健康意识有助于预防疾病，并在疾病发生时尽早干预。出于这个原因，健康促进和疾病宣传活动具有减轻全球疾病负担的巨大潜力。全球公共卫生日（GPHD）经常以此为目的实施，但评估其效果的研究，特别是在发展中国家的环境下，却很少。
我们旨在评估四个 GPHD（世界癌症日、世界糖尿病日、世界心理健康日、世界艾滋病日）对五个中美洲和南美洲（CSA）国家在线健康信息搜索行为（OHISB）的影响，这些国家在经济发展和流行病学转变阶段存在差异（乌拉圭、智利、巴西、哥伦比亚、尼加拉瓜）。
谷歌趋势数据被用作 OHISB 的“替代”指标。在 GPHD 前 28 天、GPHD 当天和之后的 7 天内对其进行测量。Joinpoint 回归程序用于对谷歌趋势数据进行时间趋势分析。这使我们能够识别趋势变化的统计学显著时间点，这些时间点反映了 OHISB 的显著“变化”。
GPHD 在研究国家中对互联网搜索查询活动的影响不一致。在产生影响的情况下，这种影响是短期的，相对搜索量水平在 GPHD 后 7 天内恢复到活动前水平。
我们的研究结果表明，需要修改 GPHD 或创建替代的健康宣传活动，或许采用更长期的方法，并针对 CSA 人口的特定健康需求进行定制。制定有效的预防策略对于应对该地区不断上升的非传染性疾病威胁至关重要。
