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Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research

Date Submitted: Mar 22, 2020
Date Accepted: Jun 13, 2020
Date Submitted to PubMed: Jun 16, 2020

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Mapping of Health Literacy and Social Panic Via Web Search Data During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency: Infodemiological Study

Xu C, Zhang X, Wang Y

Mapping of Health Literacy and Social Panic Via Web Search Data During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency: Infodemiological Study

J Med Internet Res 2020;22(7):e18831

DOI: 10.2196/18831

PMID: 32540844

PMCID: 7333795

Public Health Emergency, Health Literacy and Social Panic: Mapping of COVID-19 Based on the Web Search Data

  • Chenjie Xu; 
  • Xinyu Zhang; 
  • Yaogang Wang

ABSTRACT

Background:

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a type of pneumonia caused by a novel coronavirus that was discovered in 2019. As of May 6, 2020, 84,407 COVID-19 cases and 4,643 COVID-19 related deaths have been confirmed in China. The Chinese population has expressed great concern since the COVID-19 outbreak. Meanwhile, an average of 1 billion people per day are using the Baidu search engine to find COVID-19 related health information.

Objective:

We conducted an infodemiological study to provide an analysis of the search features of COVID-19 based on the web search data.

Methods:

Using Baidu Index data, we assessed the search frequencies of specific search terms in Baidu to describe the impact of COVID-19 on public health, psychology, behaviors, lifestyles and social policies.

Results:

We summarized changes in web search data to provide our perspective and insights on the health literacy and social panic of the Chinese population during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusions:

Our findings suggest that web search data may reflect changes in health literacy, social panic, and prevention/control policies in response to COVID-19.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Xu C, Zhang X, Wang Y

Mapping of Health Literacy and Social Panic Via Web Search Data During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency: Infodemiological Study

J Med Internet Res 2020;22(7):e18831

DOI: 10.2196/18831

PMID: 32540844

PMCID: 7333795

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