Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Feb 10, 2026
Date Accepted: Mar 31, 2026
Understanding Online Health Information Consumption Through Web Analytics: A 3-Year Descriptive Analysis of the Italian Society of Pharmacology Magazine
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored that access to reliable and expert-driven scientific information is not only essential but also lifesaving. Since 2020, the Italian Society of Pharmacology (SIF) has been publishing SIF Magazine, an online magazine dedicated to citizens. This journal was created to make pharmacology accessible to the general public, highlighting its impact on health and quality of life while clarifying the truths, theories, and misconceptions surrounding drugs and their use.
Objective:
This work analyzes web interaction data from the SIF Magazine to understand how the public reaches and engages with an online scientific journal and to gather practical insights for improving digital scientific communication.
Methods:
The data analyzed in this study were obtained from the web analytics of the SIF Magazine website. The analysis covers three years (2022-2024). By studying patterns of access, navigation, and engagement, the analysis clarifies which types of scientific content connect most with users, how people find and choose trustworthy sources, and what they do after reaching them.
Results:
Average monthly site visits increased from 120,024 (partial 2022) to 128,059 (2023) and 200,379 (2024), paralleled by higher monthly views (155,785 in 2022; 165,438 in 2023; 254,297 in 2024). Engagement rate declined modestly (36% in late 2022; 35% in 2023; 29% in 2024), consistent with scale-related dilution from an expanding top-of-funnel audience. Category-level analyses of top-performing articles indicated disproportionate interest in renal, urogenital, sexual disorders, followed by inflammation and pain, and gastrointestinal diseases. Seasonal analyses showed recurrent peaks for season-linked topics (e.g. motion sickness, photosensitivity reactions, influenza vaccination) during expected periods.
Conclusions:
Together, these findings underscore the importance of data-driven content planning and continuous performance monitoring to sustain the effectiveness of digital scientific communication platforms.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
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.