Decreased public pursuit of cancer-related information during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In response to the prioritization of healthcare resources towards the COVID-19 pandemic, routine cancer screening and diagnostic have been disrupted, potentially explaining the apparent COVID-era decline in cancer cases and mortality. In this study, we identified temporal trends in public interest in cancer-related health information using the nowcasting tool Google Trends.

Methods

We used Google Trends to query search terms related to cancer types for short-term (September 2019-September 2020) and long-term (September 2016-September 2020) trends in the US. We compared average relative search volumes (RSV) for specified time ranges to detect recent and seasonal variation.

Results

General search interest declined for all cancer types beginning in March 2020,

SUBMITTER: Adelhoefer S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7938033 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature