Brownstein John S, Nahari Adam D, Reis Ben Y
Computational Epidemiology Lab, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
NPJ Digit Med. 2020 Nov 20;3(1):152. doi: 10.1038/s41746-020-00356-6.
Firearm-related violence is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality and is at the center of a major public health and policy debate in the United States. Despite the critical role of data in informing this debate, accurate and comprehensive data on firearm sales and ownership is not readily available. In this study, we evaluate the potential of using firearm-related internet search queries as a complementary, freely available, and near-real-time data source for tracking firearm sales and ownership that enables analysis at finer geographic and temporal scales. (Here, we examine data by state and by month to compare with other data sources, but search engine volume can be analyzed by city and by the week or by day). We validate search query volume against available data on background checks in all 50 US states, and find that they are highly correlated over time (Pearson's r = 0.96, Spearman's ρ = 0.94) and space (Pearson's r = 0.78, Spearman's ρ = 0.76). We find that stratifying this analysis by gun type (long-gun vs. handgun) increases this correlation dramatically, across both time and space. We also find a positive association between firearm-related search query volume and firearm-related mortality (Pearson's r = 0.87, Spearman's ρ = 0.90), and a negative association with the strength of state-level firearm control policies (Pearson's r = -0.82, Spearman's ρ = -0.83). Based on these findings, we propose a framework for prospective surveillance that incorporates firearm-related internet search volume as a useful complementary data source to inform the public health policy debate on this issue.
与枪支相关的暴力是发病和死亡的主要原因，也是美国重大公共卫生和政策辩论的核心。尽管数据在这场辩论中起着关键作用，但关于枪支销售和拥有情况的准确而全面的数据却难以获取。在本研究中，我们评估了将与枪支相关的互联网搜索查询作为一种补充性、免费且近乎实时的数据源用于追踪枪支销售和拥有情况的潜力，这种数据源能够在更精细的地理和时间尺度上进行分析。（在此，我们按州和月份检查数据以与其他数据源进行比较，但搜索引擎流量可按城市以及按周或按天进行分析）。我们将搜索查询量与美国所有50个州的背景调查可用数据进行验证，发现它们在时间上高度相关（皮尔逊r = 0.96，斯皮尔曼ρ = 0.94），在空间上也高度相关（皮尔逊r = 0.78，斯皮尔曼ρ = 0.76）。我们发现按枪支类型（长枪与手枪）对该分析进行分层会在时间和空间上显著提高这种相关性。我们还发现与枪支相关的搜索查询量与与枪支相关的死亡率之间存在正相关（皮尔逊r = 0.87，斯皮尔曼ρ = 0.90），与州级枪支管制政策的力度存在负相关（皮尔逊r = -0.82, 斯皮尔曼ρ = -0.83）。基于这些发现，我们提出了一个前瞻性监测框架，该框架将与枪支相关的互联网搜索量纳入其中，作为一个有用的补充数据源，为关于这个问题的公共卫生政策辩论提供信息。
