Using search trends before and after the COVID-19 outbreak in China to analyze digestive symptoms: medical informatics study of the Baidu Index data

ABSTRACT:

Background

From the beginning of 2020, the world was plunged into a pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). People increasingly searched for information related to COVID-19 on internet websites. The Baidu Index is a data sharing platform. The main data provided is the search index (SI), which represents the frequency that keywords are used in searches.

Methods

January 9, 2020 is an important date for the outbreak of COVID-19 in China. We compared the changes of SI before and after for 7 keywords, including “fever”, “cough”, “nausea”, “vomiting”, “abdominal pain”, “diarrhea”, “constipation”. The slope and peak values of SI change curves are compared. Ten provinces in China were selected for a separate analysis, including Beijing, Gansu, Guangdong, G

SUBMITTER: Luo J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9511189 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature