Suitability of Google Trends™ for Digital Surveillance During Ongoing COVID-19 Epidemic: A Case Study from India

Overview

Journal Disaster Med Public Health Prep

Publisher Cambridge University Press

Specialty Public Health

Date 2021 Aug 3

PMID 34343467

Citations 9

Authors

Parmeshwar Satpathy

Sanjeev Kumar

Pankaj Prasad

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objective: Digital surveillance has shown mixed results as a supplement to traditional surveillance. Google Trends™ (GT) (Google, Mountain View, CA, United States) has been used for digital surveillance of H1N1, Ebola and MERS. We used GT to correlate the information seeking on COVID-19 with number of tests and cases in India.

Methods: Data was obtained on daily tests and cases from WHO, ECDC and covid19india.org. We used a comprehensive search strategy to retrieve GT data on COVID-19 related information-seeking behavior in India between January 1 and May 31, 2020 in the form of relative search volume (RSV). We also used time-lag correlation analysis to assess the temporal relationships between RSV and daily new COVID-19 cases and tests.

Results: GT RSV showed high time-lag correlation with both daily reported tests and cases for the terms "COVID 19," "COVID," "social distancing," "soap," and "lockdown" at the national level. In 5 high-burden states, high correlation was observed for these 5 terms along with "Corona." Peaks in RSV, both at the national level and in high-burden states corresponded with media coverage or government declarations on the ongoing pandemic.

Conclusion: The correlation observed between GT data and COVID-19 tests/cases in India may be either due to media-coverage-induced curiosity, or health-seeking curiosity.

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