Basteris Angelo, Mansourvar Marjan, Kock Wiil Uffe
Health Informatics and Technology, The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2020 Jun 26;272:245-248. doi: 10.3233/SHTI200540.
Google Trends is a free online tool that provides information on the interest on a topic measured as Google searches in the big data era. In this work, we present methods for detection of trends and seasonal effects in online interest for health topics based on Google Trends data. We present data for the term obesity worldwide and in a convenience sample of countries (Denmark, United Kingdom, USA, Japan) over the last five years. Our analysis shows that, despite obesity being one of the global health challenges, there is a decreasing trend in online interest in the topic. We also observed seasonal effects, with less interest for the topic during December and the summer months. Identifying trends and seasonal patterns in online interest can support resource allocation and planning and allows one to evaluate the effectiveness of global and local outreach efforts on public health.
谷歌趋势是一款免费的在线工具，它能提供大数据时代基于谷歌搜索衡量的某一主题的关注度信息。在这项研究中，我们提出了基于谷歌趋势数据检测健康主题在线关注度的趋势和季节性效应的方法。我们展示了过去五年全球范围内以及部分国家（丹麦、英国、美国、日本）便利样本中“肥胖”一词的数据。我们的分析表明，尽管肥胖是全球健康挑战之一，但该主题的在线关注度呈下降趋势。我们还观察到季节性效应，12月和夏季对该主题的关注度较低。识别在线关注度的趋势和季节性模式有助于资源分配和规划，并能让人评估全球和地方公共卫生宣传工作的成效。
