Google Searches and Detection of Conjunctivitis Epidemics Worldwide.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Epidemic and seasonal infectious conjunctivitis outbreaks can impact education, workforce, and economy adversely. Yet conjunctivitis typically is not a reportable disease, potentially delaying mitigating intervention. Our study objective was to determine if conjunctivitis epidemics could be identified using Google Trends search data.

Design

Search data for conjunctivitis-related and control search terms from 5 years and countries worldwide were obtained. Country and term were masked. Temporal scan statistics were applied to identify candidate epidemics. Candidates then were assessed for geotemporal concordance with an a priori defined collection of known reported conjunctivitis outbreaks, as a measure of sensitivity.

Participants

Populations by country that se

SUBMITTER: Deiner MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7338037 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature