The Influence of Media Coverage and Governmental Policies on Google Queries Related to COVID-19 Cutaneous Symptoms: Infodemiology Study.

Publisher: JMIR Publications Country of Publication: Canada NLM ID: 101669345 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 2369-2960 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 23692960 NLM ISO Abbreviation: JMIR Public Health Surveill Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: Toronto : JMIR Publications, [2015]-

Internet* ; Public Policy*; COVID-19/*complications ; Mass Media/*statistics & numerical data ; Public Health Surveillance/*methods ; Search Engine/*trends ; Skin Diseases/*virology; COVID-19/epidemiology ; Europe/epidemiology ; Humans ; United States/epidemiology

Background: During COVID-19, studies have reported the appearance of internet searches for disease symptoms before their validation by the World Health Organization. This suggested that monitoring of these searches with tools including Google Trends may help monitor the pandemic itself. In Europe and North America, dermatologists reported an unexpected outbreak of cutaneous acral lesions (eg, chilblain-like lesions) in April 2020. However, external factors such as public communications may also hinder the use of Google Trends as an infodemiology tool.
Objective: The study aimed to assess the impact of media announcements and lockdown enforcement on internet searches related to cutaneous acral lesions during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.
Methods: Two searches on Google Trends, including daily relative search volumes for (1) "toe" or "chilblains" and (2) "coronavirus," were performed from January 1 to May 16, 2020, with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany as the countries of choice. The ratio of interest over time in "chilblains" and "coronavirus" was plotted. To assess the impact of lockdown enforcement and media coverage on these internet searches, we performed an interrupted time-series analysis for each country.
Results: The ratio of interest over time in "chilblains" to "coronavirus" showed a constant upward trend. In France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, lockdown enforcement was associated with a significant slope change for "chilblain" searches with a variation coefficient of 1.06 (SE 0.42) (P=0.01), 1.04 (SE 0.28) (P<.01), and 1.21 (SE 0.44) (P=0.01), respectively. After media announcements, these ratios significantly increased in France, Spain, Italy, and the United States with variation coefficients of 18.95 (SE 5.77) (P=.001), 31.31 (SE 6.31) (P<.001), 14.57 (SE 6.33) (P=.02), and 11.24 (SE 4.93) (P=.02), respectively, followed by a significant downward trend in France (-1.82 [SE 0.45]), Spain (-1.10 [SE 0.38]), and Italy (-0.93 [SE 0.33]) (P<.001, P=0.004, and P<.001, respectively). The adjusted R ² values were 0.311, 0.351, 0.325, and 0.305 for France, Spain, Italy, and the United States, respectively, suggesting an average correlation between time and the search volume; however, this correlation was weak for Germany and the United Kingdom.
Conclusions: To date, the association between chilblain-like lesions and COVID-19 remains controversial; however, our results indicate that Google queries of "chilblain" were highly influenced by media coverage and government policies, indicating that caution should be exercised when using Google Trends as a monitoring tool for emerging diseases.
(©Solene Huynh Dagher, Guillaume Lamé, Thomas Hubiche, Khaled Ezzedine, Tu Anh Duong. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 25.02.2021.)

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Keywords: COVID-19; Google Trends; chilblains; dermatology; infodemiology; lesion; media; media coverage; online health information; skin lesions; trend

Date Created: 20210129 Date Completed: 20210302 Latest Revision: 20210305

20221213

PMC7909455

10.2196/25651

33513563