To characterize how researchers are using Google Trends, we classified studies by topic domain and study aim. A critical appraisal of the existing literature would increase awareness of its potential uses in health care research and facilitate a better understanding of its strengths and weaknesses as a research tool.Īccordingly, we performed a systematic review of the health care literature using Google Trends. Furthermore, there are no guidance or agreed standards for the appropriate use of this tool. Google Trends has been used in many research publications, but the range of applications and methods employed have not been reviewed. Google Trends analyzes a portion of the three billion daily Google Search searches and provides data on geospatial and temporal patterns in search volumes for user-specified terms. One tool that allows users to interact with Internet search data is Google Trends, a free, publically accessible online portal of Google Inc. An early and well-known example of utilizing Internet data in health has been the surveillance of influenza outbreaks with comparable accuracy to traditional methodologies. In fact, the Institute of Medicine recognizes that the application of Internet data in health care research holds promise and may “complement and extend the data foundations that presently exist”. Internet search data may provide valuable insights into patterns of disease and population behavior. One form of Big Data is that which accumulates in the course of Internet search activities. New tools are emerging to facilitate health care research in the Big Data era. A limitation of the study is the challenge of classifying heterogeneous studies utilizing a novel data source.
We present a checklist to facilitate appropriate methodological documentation for future studies. However, only 7% of articles were reproducible based on complete documentation of search strategy. Overall, 67% of articles provided a rationale for their search input. Among surveillance studies, 92% were validated against a reference standard data source, and 80% of studies using correlation had a correlation statistic ≥0.70. By use, 27% of articles utilized Google Trends for casual inference, 39% for description, and 34% for surveillance. Studies were classified into four topic domains: infectious disease (27% of articles), mental health and substance use (24%), other non-communicable diseases (16%), and general population behavior (33%). Google Trends publications increased seven-fold from 2009 to 2013. Seventy studies met our inclusion criteria. Two independent reviewers systematically identified studies utilizing Google Trends for health care research from MEDLINE and PubMed.
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