Parmeshwar Satpathy1, Sanjeev Kumar2, Pankaj Prasad2. 1. Department of Community Medicine, Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Burla, Odisha, India. 2. Department of Community & Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Digital surveillance has shown mixed results as supplement to traditional surveillance. Google Trends™ (GT) has been used for digital surveillance of H1N1, Ebola and MERS. We used GT to correlate the information seeking on COVID-19 with number of tests and cases in India. METHODS: We obtained data on daily tests and cases from WHO, ECDC and covid19india.org. We used a comprehensive search strategy to retrieve GT data on COVID-19 related information-seeking behaviour in India between 1st January and 31st May 2020 in the form of relative search volume (RSV). We used time-lag correlation analysis to assess the temporal relationships between RSV and daily new COVID-19 cases and tests. RESULTS: GT RSV showed high time-lag correlation with both daily reported tests and cases for the terms "COVID 19", "COVID", "social distancing", "soap" and "lockdown" at national level. In five high-burden states, high correlation was observed for these five terms along with "Corona". Peaks in RSV both at national level and high-burden states corresponded with media coverage or government declarations on the ongoing pandemic. CONCLUSION: The correlation observed between GT data and COVID-19 tests/cases in India may be either due to media-coverage induced curiosity or health-seeking.
OBJECTIVE: Digital surveillance has shown mixed results as supplement to traditional surveillance. Google Trends™ (GT) has been used for digital surveillance of H1N1, Ebola and MERS. We used GT to correlate the information seeking on COVID-19 with number of tests and cases in India. METHODS: We obtained data on daily tests and cases from WHO, ECDC and covid19india.org. We used a comprehensive search strategy to retrieve GT data on COVID-19 related information-seeking behaviour in India between 1st January and 31st May 2020 in the form of relative search volume (RSV). We used time-lag correlation analysis to assess the temporal relationships between RSV and daily new COVID-19 cases and tests. RESULTS: GT RSV showed high time-lag correlation with both daily reported tests and cases for the terms "COVID 19", "COVID", "social distancing", "soap" and "lockdown" at national level. In five high-burden states, high correlation was observed for these five terms along with "Corona". Peaks in RSV both at national level and high-burden states corresponded with media coverage or government declarations on the ongoing pandemic. CONCLUSION: The correlation observed between GT data and COVID-19 tests/cases in India may be either due to media-coverage induced curiosity or health-seeking.
Entities:
Keywords:
ICT in healthcare; disease surveillance; infodemiology; pandemic; time lag correlation