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

Cancer Causes & Control - Tập 32 - Trang 577-585 - 2021
Siegfried Adelhoefer1,2, Philipp Berning3, Stephen B. Solomon4, Majid Maybody4, Seamus P. Whelton1, Michael J. Blaha1, Omar Dzaye1,2,5
1Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA
2Department of Radiology and Neuroradiology, Charité, Berlin, Germany
3Department of Hematology and Oncology, University Hospital Muenster, Muenster, Germany
4Department of Radiology, Interventional Radiology Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA
5Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA

Tóm tắt

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. 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. General search interest declined for all cancer types beginning in March 2020, with changes in search interest for “Breast cancer,” “Colorectal cancer,” and “Melanoma” of − 30.6%, − 28.2%, and − 26.7%, respectively, and compared with the mean RSV of the two previous months. In the same time range, search interest for “Telemedicine” has increased by + 907.1% and has reached a 4-year peak with a sustained increased level of search interest. Absolute cancer mortality has declined and is presently at a 4-year low; however, search interest in cancer has been recuperating since July 2020. We observed a marked decline in searches for cancer-related health information that mirrors the reduction in new cancer diagnoses and cancer mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Health professions need to be prepared for the coming demand for cancer-related healthcare, foreshadowed by recovering interest in cancer-related information on Google Trends.

Tài liệu tham khảo

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