Ottwell Ryan, Cox Katherine, Dobson Taylor, Shah Muneeb, Hartwell Micah
Department of Dermatology, St Joseph Mercy Hospital - Livingston, Howell, MI, United States.
Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, OK, United States.
JMIR Dermatol. 2022 Sep 12;5(3):e39766. doi: 10.2196/39766.
A new and potentially dangerous health trend, testicle tanning, received extensive media attention following a popular television program where a health and fitness influencer touted that testicular tanning increases testosterone levels. It has been shown that the public has a particular interest in tanning wellness trends; thus, given the vague nomenclature of the practice, the abundance of misleading information and support for using UV light by other health influencers may lead to an increase in men exposing themselves to UV radiation and developing associated complications.
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the public's interest in testicle tanning.
Relative search interest was collected from Google Trends, and daily tweet volume was collected using Twitter via Sprout Social. The search was filtered to observe internet activity between February 1, 2022, and August 18, 2022. Autoregressive integrated moving average models were applied to forecast the predicted values through April 30 to compare to the actual observed values immediately following the airing of the show.
We found that the relative search interest for testicle tanning peaked (100) on April 19, 2022, following a discussion of the topic on a television program. Compared to the forecasted relative search interest of 1.36 (95% CI -3.29 to 6.01), had the topic not been discussed, it showed a 7252% increase in relative search interest. A similar spike was observed in the volume of tweets peaking on April 18 with 42,736. The expected number of tweets from the autoregressive integrated moving average model was 122 (95% CI -154 to 397), representing a 35,053% increase.
Our results show that the promotion of testicle tanning generated significant public interest in an evidence-lacking and potentially dangerous health trend. Dermatologists and other health care professionals should be aware of these new viral health trends to best counsel patients and combat health misinformation.
一种新的且可能危险的健康趋势——睾丸晒黑，在一档热门电视节目播出后受到了媒体的广泛关注。该节目中一位健康与健身领域的有影响力人士宣称睾丸晒黑可提高睾酮水平。研究表明，公众对晒黑健康趋势有着特别的兴趣；因此，鉴于这种做法的命名模糊，存在大量误导性信息，且其他健康领域有影响力人士对使用紫外线的支持，可能会导致更多男性暴露于紫外线辐射并引发相关并发症。
本文旨在评估公众对睾丸晒黑的兴趣。
从谷歌趋势收集相对搜索热度，并通过Sprout Social使用推特收集每日推文数量。搜索范围限定在2022年2月1日至2022年8月18日之间，以观察互联网活动情况。应用自回归积分滑动平均模型预测到4月30日的预测值，以便与节目播出后立即观察到的实际值进行比较。
我们发现，在一档电视节目讨论该话题后，睾丸晒黑的相对搜索热度于2022年4月19日达到峰值（100）。与预测的相对搜索热度1.36（95%置信区间为-3.29至6.01）相比，如果该话题未被讨论，相对搜索热度显示增长了7252%。在4月18日推文数量也出现了类似的峰值，达到42736条。自回归积分滑动平均模型预测的推文预期数量为122条（95%置信区间为-154至397），增长了35053%。
我们的结果表明，对睾丸晒黑的宣传引发了公众对一种缺乏证据且可能危险的健康趋势的极大兴趣。皮肤科医生和其他医疗保健专业人员应了解这些新出现的热门健康趋势，以便更好地为患者提供咨询并对抗健康方面的错误信息。
