Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Mar 12, 2021)
Date Submitted: Aug 19, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited.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.
Global monitoring of public interest in preventative measures for COVID-19 by Google Trends
ABSTRACT
Background:
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first reported in December 2019, and on 11, March 2020, it was declared a global pandemic. It has been suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic may have an impact on people's interest in infectious diseases and their preventable measures, but the magnitude of the impact on them and the difference between the countries is not very clear. Google Trends can be a useful tool in understanding public awareness of COVID-19 and preventative measures for COVID-19. Google Trends shows a relative search volume (RSV) for a specific term according to a geographical location and a defined timeframe.
Objective:
The purpose of this study is to assess the magnitude of the COVID-19’s impact on the public interest of this virus and the population’s preventable behaviors against infectious diseases globally using Google Trends.
Methods:
In the present study, I investigated search terms “Wash Hands”, “Mask”, and “Corona” with Google Trends in 6 local languages across 12 different countries applying search time range from January 1, 2020, to July 8, 2020, as a shorter search time range and from January 1, 2015, to July 31, 2020, as a longer search time range.
Results:
The results show that in all countries studied, the RSV of Wash Hands and Mask increased significantly in 2020, when the COVID-19 epidemic began, compared to the previous years. The timing of peak of the RSV in mask and hand washing varied across countries, especially in masks. The timing of peak RSV in Corona was during a period of relatively low cumulative confirmed cases in all the countries and no further increase even in the countries where the explosive epidemic followed.
Conclusions:
The results suggest that the COVID-19 epidemic may have a positive impact on the overall response to infectious diseases in public by the increased awareness of the preventable measures, as well as the need to consider analysis and strategies that will lead to the implementation of sustained and more effective measures to combat COVID-19.
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