Are online searches for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) related to media or epidemiology? A cross-sectional study

Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved..

BACKGROUND: Previous studies on the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) have found strong correlations between online searches and the epidemiology of the disease.

AIM: Our aim was to determine if online searches for COVID-19 related to international media announcements or national epidemiology.

METHODS: Searches for "coronavirus" were made on Google Trends from December 31, 2019 to April 13, 2020 for 40 European countries. The online COVID-19 searches for all countries were correlated with each other. COVID-10 epidemiology (i.e. incidence and mortality) was correlated with the national online searches. Major announcements by the World Health Organization (WHO) were taken into consideration with peaks in online searches. Correlations were made using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient.

RESULTS: Overall, the online searches for COVID-19 were not correlated with the actual incidence and mortality of COVID-19. The mean Spearman correlation for incidence was 0.20 (range -0.66 to 0.76) and for mortality was 0.35 (range -0.75 to 0.85). Online searches in Europe were all strongly synchronized with each other; a mean Spearman correlation of 0.93 (range 0.62 to 0.99).

CONCLUSIONS: Online searches for COVID-19 in Europe are not correlated with epidemiology but strongly correlated with international WHO announcements. Our study challenges previous Google Trends studies and emphasizes the role of the WHO in raising awareness of a new disease.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2020

Erschienen:

2020

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:97

Enthalten in:

International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases - 97(2020) vom: 10. Aug., Seite 386-390

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Szmuda, Tomasz [VerfasserIn]
Ali, Shan [VerfasserIn]
Hetzger, Tarjei Vevang [VerfasserIn]
Rosvall, Philip [VerfasserIn]
Słoniewski, Paweł [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

COVID-19
Europe
Google Trends
Journal Article
Risk communication
Surveillance

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 30.07.2020

Date Revised 10.01.2021

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1016/j.ijid.2020.06.028

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM311144187