Previously submitted to: JMIR Formative Research (no longer under consideration since May 29, 2026)
Date Submitted: Jan 12, 2026
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Post-Disaster Population Health Needs in Puerto Rico: A Google Trends Analysis of Health Care Access, Mental Health & Help-Seeking Behaviors
ABSTRACT
Background:
Puerto Rico has endured multiple public health disasters over the past decade, including major hurricanes, earthquakes, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which have profoundly impacted its healthcare infrastructure and the mental and physical well-being of its residents.
Objective:
This study aims to identify temporal patterns in health-related search interests and explore associations with major public health disasters.
Methods:
This study utilizes Google Trends data from August 6, 2017, to October 22, 2022, to analyze public interest in three health-related categories: health care access, help-seeking behaviors, and mental and cognitive health during and following key disasters.
Results:
Search activity showed no consistent pattern for health care access, yet searches related to help-seeking behaviors declined post- disasters, while mental health searches showed heterogeneous patterns, rising post-natural disasters but declining after COVID-19.
Conclusions:
These findings underscore the critical need for accessible and responsive mental health services in Puerto Rico, particularly post-disaster, and demonstrate the utility of digital surveillance tools like Google Trends for timely monitoring of population health concerns to inform resource allocation during crises.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.