Department of Biomedical Sciences for Health, University of Milan, Via Pascal, 36, 20133 Milan, Italy.
Nutritional Support Unit, Veneto Institute of Oncology IOV-IRCCS, Via Gattamelata, 64, 35128 Padua, Italy.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 24;20(3):2106. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20032106.
A cross-sectional study was designed to assess the impact of a celebrity's announcement of having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on the volume of cancer-related research on the Internet. Global searches were carried out on Google Trends (GT) for the period from 1 January 2004 to 20 November 2022 (since data prior to 2004 were not available) using the search words Tumore del Pancreas (pancreatic cancer), Tumore neuroendocrino (neuroendocrine tumor), and Fedez (the name of a popular Italian rapper). The frequency of specific page views for Fedez, Tumore del pancreas, and Tumore neuroendocrino was collected via Wikipedia Trends data. Statistical analyses were carried out using the Pearson correlation coefficient (r). The GT data revealed a strong correlation (r = 0.83) while the Wikipedia Trends data indicated a moderate correlation (r = 0.37) for Tumore neuroendocrino and Tumore del pancreas. The search peaks for the GT and Wikipedia pages occur during the same time period. An association was found between the celebrity's announcement of his pancreatic cancer diagnosis and the volume of pancreatic-cancer-related online searches. Our findings demonstrate that media events and media coverage of health-related news can raise people's curiosity and desire for health information.
一项横断面研究旨在评估名人宣布确诊胰腺癌对互联网上癌症相关研究数量的影响。利用 GT 进行了全球搜索，时间范围为 2004 年 1 月 1 日至 2022 年 11 月 20 日（因为 2004 年之前的数据不可用），使用的搜索词是 Tumore del Pancreas（胰腺癌）、Tumore neuroendocrino（神经内分泌肿瘤）和 Fedez（一位受欢迎的意大利说唱歌手的名字）。通过 Wikipedia Trends 数据收集了特定页面视图的频率。使用 Pearson 相关系数（r）进行统计分析。GT 数据显示出很强的相关性（r = 0.83），而 Wikipedia Trends 数据显示出中度相关性（r = 0.37），用于 Tumore neuroendocrino 和 Tumore del pancreas。GT 和 Wikipedia 页面的搜索峰值出现在同一时间段。发现名人宣布其胰腺癌诊断与胰腺癌相关在线搜索量之间存在关联。我们的研究结果表明，媒体事件和媒体对健康相关新闻的报道可以引起人们对健康信息的好奇心和渴望。
