Kho Adeline, Niederer Rachael, Wilson Graham
Registrar, Department of Ophthalmology, Waikato District Health Board, Hamilton.
Ophthalmologist, Department of Ophthalmology, Auckland District Health Board, Auckland.
N Z Med J. 2020 May 8;133(1514):10-15.
To evaluate the impact of public health campaigns for glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration compared to breast cancer and prostate cancer using Google Trends data.
Relative search volumes for the terms 'glaucoma', 'macular degeneration', 'breast cancer' and 'prostate cancer' for New Zealand from October 2008-September 2018 were obtained via Google Trends. Intervention time-series analyses were used to compare observations before and after each awareness campaign.
Of the campaigns occurring in the 10-year study period, statistically significant increases in search behaviour were observed for breast cancer (45%, p<0.01), prostate cancer (32%, p<0.01) and glaucoma (16%, p<0.01). Macular degeneration search behaviour increased on average 14% but this was not statistically significant (p>0.1), although increased activity (294%) was observed in December 2016, corresponding with the release of a report, public meeting and media release on the socioeconomic impact of macular degeneration.
Glaucoma and macular degeneration search behaviour in New Zealand has a low impact following health awareness campaigns in comparison to breast and prostate cancer. This implies there is scope for improvement with these campaigns and a large increase in macular degeneration activity following a public meeting, and report release suggests that increased funding may increase impact. This study also highlights the utility of internet data for cost-effective monitoring of public interest in health issues.
利用谷歌趋势数据评估与乳腺癌和前列腺癌宣传活动相比，青光眼和年龄相关性黄斑变性公共卫生宣传活动的影响。
通过谷歌趋势获取2008年10月至2018年9月新西兰“青光眼”“黄斑变性”“乳腺癌”和“前列腺癌”等术语的相对搜索量。采用干预时间序列分析比较每次宣传活动前后的观测结果。
在为期10年的研究期内开展的宣传活动中，乳腺癌（45%，p<0.01）、前列腺癌（32%，p<0.01）和青光眼（16%，p<0.01）的搜索行为出现了具有统计学意义的增加。黄斑变性的搜索行为平均增加了14%，但无统计学意义（p>0.1），不过在2016年12月观察到活动增加（294%），这与一份关于黄斑变性社会经济影响的报告发布、公开会议及媒体报道相对应。
与乳腺癌和前列腺癌相比，新西兰青光眼和黄斑变性宣传活动后的搜索行为影响较小。这意味着这些宣传活动仍有改进空间，公开会议和报告发布后黄斑变性活动大幅增加表明增加资金投入可能会增强影响。本研究还凸显了互联网数据在经济高效监测公众对健康问题关注度方面的效用。
